In the field of hydrogen energy utilization, it is of great significance to develop low-cost and high-performance non noble metal catalysts to accelerate hydrogen energy conversion. Tian Xinlong, a professor in the State Key Laboratory of South China Sea marine resources utilization of Hainan University, and his "marine clean energy" innovation team took inspiration from "movable type printing" and adopted a simple and efficient "point-to-point" printing strategy to optimize single atom catalysts and break through the bottleneck of research on single atom catalysts with multiple active centers. Recently, relevant research results were published in nature communication under the title of "movable type printing synthesis of high entropy monoatomic catalyst".
Because of its unique electronic structure, uniform active center and nearly 100% atomic utilization, monoatomic catalysts have shown excellent catalytic activity in many catalytic reactions and show great application prospects. In addition, a single atom with multiple active centers can often provide more kinds of active centers, and the synergy between adjacent atoms is also beneficial to improve its electrocatalytic activity, which is considered to be the next breakthrough of single atom catalysts.
However, the current research on monoatomic catalysts is generally limited to monoatomic to binary monoatomic catalysts, and there are few reports on monoatomic catalysts with multiple active centers, mainly because it is difficult to stably anchor different kinds of metal atoms on a single carrier, which greatly limits the research and application fields of monoatomic catalysts. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a general and efficient method to achieve the controllable synthesis of monoatoms with multiple active centers.
According to Tian Xinlong, the team's inspiration came from "movable type printing". First, it accurately synthesized 11 monoatomic individuals as "movable type" templates, and used porous carbon carriers as "paper". Under high-temperature roasting conditions, it realized simple and efficient "point-to-point" printing, and successfully synthesized monoatomic catalysts from five yuan to eleven yuan. The prepared five element high entropy monoatomic catalyst showed excellent catalytic activity, durability and device performance.
It is reported that this research result is another breakthrough made by Tian Xinlong's team in the field of hydrogen energy utilization after the publication of papers on precise design and regulation of catalysts, analysis of catalytic mechanism and attenuation mechanism, large-scale synthesis and device application in cell sub journal in May. The development of high-efficiency hydrogen energy conversion technology is of great significance to promote the large-scale commercialization of fuel cells and the sustainable development of the hydrogen energy industry in Hainan Province.
