Transforming cobalt hydroxide nanowires into single atom site catalysts

The stability of the catalyst has always received considerable attention in materials science and catalysis. Single atom site catalysts (SACs) with high surface energy and low coordination number are generally believed not as stable as nanocatalysts. Herein, we discovered that nanocrystals, such as nanowires (NWs), which are unstable at high temperature, can be directly converted into SACs without undergoing particles aggregation and growth. In-situ environmental transmission electron microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and density functional calculation studies demonstrated that the high temperature overcomes the energy barrier of metal atomization while N-doped carbon materials regulate the atomic adsorption energy, both of which jointly cause the transformation of NWs into SACs. Notably, the obtained SACs exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the hydrogenation of nitroarenes to the corresponding amines due to the considerable decrease in energy barriers of the rate-determining step.