(366e) A Decade-Long Quest into Understanding and Developing Novel Single-Atom Alloy Catalysts

In the search for more active, stable and selective catalysts, materials such as alloys have emerged as highly promising. Single atom alloys constitute a special type of such materials, synthesized by combining a host metal with a dopant metal at such high dilutions that the dopant remains atomically dispersed. The dopant atoms therein are subject to electronic and geometric effects, giving rise to catalytic sites with unique properties, not exhibited by either component of the alloy in a pure state. This behavior generates novel opportunities for designing catalysts for industrially relevant chemistries, such as hydrogenation reactions or alkane activation. A fundamental understanding of the properties of SAAs would be indispensable in formulating principles that would aid catalyst design efforts. Motivated by these opportunities, we have studied in the past decade SAAs in detail and have revealed their reactivity trends and their ability to escape traditional Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi relations, thereby providing opportunities for designing superior catalysts. Highlights from this research will be presented and discussed, along with our latest efforts in building a general theory of SAA reactivity, based on analyzing the physics and chemistry of the interactions between SAA sites and species adsorbed thereon.