• Piccolo, L.
• Christopher, Phillip
• Loridant, Stephane

Abstract

The interest in single-metal-atom dispersion in heterogeneous catalysis has existed since the 1950s with spectroscopic investigations of rhodium “single-site” catalysts supported on alumina, and more recently with oxometallate monomers for selective oxidation reactions. A decade ago, advances in electron microscopy intensified the interest of the catalysis community in controlling the dispersion of supported metals down to the single-atom active site level and revealing their intrinsic catalytic properties. Pioneering works in the ever-growing field of single-atom catalysis investigated late transition metals (group 8–11) supported on transition metal oxides for the CO oxidation and water–gas shift reactions. Since then, various single-atom catalysts, most often supported on oxides, have been evaluated in a broad panel of thermal oxidation reactions, and have often shown remarkable performances. Besides CO oxidation over oxide-supported noble metals, which represents the major part of the literature, this chapter reviews the main classes of oxidation reactions, including total and selective oxidations of hydrocarbons and oxygenates, on oxide- or carbon-supported catalysts. Throughout the chapter, we emphasize several aspects that we consider important, such as the coordination environment and stability of single metal atoms, as well as their compared performance with supported nanoparticles.

Topics

• nanoparticle
• dispersion
• Carbon
• Rhodium
• electron microscopy