Toward Multicomponent Single-Atom Catalysis for Efficient Electrochemical Energy Conversion

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) have recently emerged as the ultimate solution for overcoming the limitations of traditional catalysts by bridging the gap between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts. Atomically dispersed identical active sites enable a maximal atom utilization efficiency, high activity, and selectivity toward the wide range of electrochemical reactions, superior structural robustness, and stability over nanoparticles due to strong atomic covalent bonding with supports. Mononuclear active sites of SACs can be further adjusted by engineering with multicomponent elements, such as introducing dual-metal active sites or additional neighbor atoms, and SACs can be regarded as multicomponent SACs if the surroundings of the active sites or the active sites themselves consist of multiple atomic elements. Multicomponent engineering offers an increased combinational diversity in SACs and unprecedented routes to exceed the theoretical catalytic performance limitations imposed by single-component scaling relationships for adsorption and transition state energies of reactions. The precisely designed structures of multicomponent SACs are expected to be responsible for the synergistic optimization of the overall electrocatalytic performance by beneficially modulating the electronic structure, the nature of orbital filling, the binding energy of reaction intermediates, the reaction pathways, and the local structural transformations. This Review demonstrates these synergistic effects of multicomponent SACs by highlighting representative breakthroughs on electrochemical conversion reactions, which might mitigate the global energy crisis of high dependency on fossil fuels. General synthesis methods and characterization techniques for SACs are also introduced. Then, the perspective on challenges and future directions in the research of SACs is briefly summarized. We believe that careful tailoring of multicomponent active sites is one of the most promising approaches to unleash the full potential of SACs and reach the superior catalytic activity, selectivity, and stability at the same time, which makes SACs promising candidates for electrocatalysts in various energy conversion reactions.