Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have become a frontier in catalysis as an attractive technique with exceptional performance, offering a promising platform for improving many key electrocatalytic and catalytic reactions, such as small organic molecule oxidation and ORR in fuel cells, OER and HER in water electrolysis, eCO2RR, water-gas shift (WGS) reactions (e.g., CO + H₂O → CO₂ + H₂), and hydrogenation reactions. The supported SACs contain isolated individual atoms dispersed on, and/or coordinated with, surface atoms of appropriate supports, which not only maximize the atomic efficiency of metals but also provide an alternative strategy to tune the activity and selectivity of electrocatalytic and catalytic reactions.

In recent years, single-atom alloy (SAA) catalysts have also been shown to be powerful for a variety of catalytic reactions, such as selective hydrogenation reactions, dehydrogenation reactions, oxidation reactions, hydrogenolysis, and coupling reactions. The creation of SAA catalysts is based on the deposition of isolated reactive metal adatoms into host metal surfaces (of a relatively inert metal). The catalytic performance of SAA catalysts strongly depends on metal-support interactions and their composition and structure.

Further reading materials:

J. Mater. Chem. A, 13 (44) 38290–38300 (2025). 10.1039/D5TA05763A

Small Struct., 2 2000051 (2021). 10.1002/sstr.202000051