"Single - Atom Catalysis" is one of the few new concepts proposed by Chinese that has a wide international influence. This landmark original research has triggered the explosive development of research in the field of single - atom catalysis and has rapidly grown into an active emerging catalytic research field. Tao Zhang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who proposed this concept, has also won the 2024 Future Science Prize in Physical Sciences for his pioneering contributions to the development and application of single - atom catalysis.
"The discoveries of scientists are full of contingency and necessity. Having studied metal catalysts for decades, proposing the concept of'single - atom catalysts' can be said to be an inevitable result of my scientific research career," said Academician Tao Zhang in a recent interview with the reporter of China Chemical Industry News.
The Spark of Catalytic Ideas Ignites
"In 1978, at the tender age of 15, I was exceptionally permitted to sit for the national college entrance examination and subsequently enrolled in the Department of Chemistry at Shanxi University of Technology. Also in 1978, Moruo Guo, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered the speech 'The Spring of Science', which made every young person at that time excited and highly motivated to study. I also determined to become a scientist and climb the peak of world science," said Academician Tao Zhang when talking about the original intention of serving the country through science.
"After graduating from university, I was fortunate enough to enter the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for further study. The Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics' attitude of 'employing talents without sticking to formalities' made me feel very secure. Two supervisors, Liwu Lin and Jingling Zang, also opened the door to the research in the field of catalysis for me," Academician Tao Zhang said when recalling the reason for entering the catalyst field.
Catalysis is the foundation of modern human civilization. More than 80% of the chemical industry involves catalytic technology, such as the iron - based catalyst used in ammonia synthesis and the aluminum - titanium catalyst used in olefin polymerization. Academician Tao Zhang's initial research direction was metal catalysts. Noble metal catalysts play an important role in the field of catalysis, but noble metal resources are scarce and expensive. "How to disperse metal catalysts better to achieve better catalytic effects is the main research goal. At that time, we named it highly dispersed metal catalysts. In retrospect, it was actually the embryonic form of single - atom catalysts," explained Academician Tao Zhang.
Pursuing the Limit of Chemical Scale
After obtaining his doctorate, he continued his scientific research work at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1995, he established his own research group and worked hard for more than a decade on the research and application of catalysts required for the development of China's aerospace industry.
"When I first became the leader of the research group, this research group was in great difficulty. The institute once thought there was no task and was going to disband this research group. Supervisor Liwu Lin suggested to the institute leaders that we young people be given a try. Maybe we could save the research group," Academician Tao Zhang recalled the situation when he first took over the work of the research group. But under such conditions, they gritted their teeth and persisted. After years of applied research, they accumulated enough funds and finally had the strength to invest in the cutting - edge basic research field.
Around 2000, he began to re - examine the scientific problems in the field of metal catalysts. At that time, the concept of nanocatalysis was very popular. To find a new path, there had to be a breakthrough.
Academician Tao Zhang continued to introduce: "For chemistry, the atomic scale is the limit. To improve the efficiency of catalysts, first of all, it is necessary to improve the utilization rate of noble metal atoms, highly disperse noble metals on a support with a large specific surface area, and increase the proportion of surface atoms. The minimum limit of catalytic cognition in the spatial scale is the atomic scale. Reaching the limit of active metal dispersion is one of the long - term goals pursued in the field of catalysis." Thinking hard along this path, the metal particles gradually shrank in the "eyes" of the research team. They perceived that there was still a lot of room for dispersion and research for nanoscale metal catalysts at the micro - scale. The goal of pursuing the limit was just ahead...
Everything was ready except for the opportunity. With the gradual improvement of experimental equipment, the aberration - corrected electron microscope with high resolution was born, and the image of a single atom could be accurately captured. In 2009, when the time, place and people were all favorable, Academician Tao Zhang's team cooperated with Professor Jun Li of Tsinghua University and Professor Jingyue Liu of Arizona State University to achieve the preparation of platinum single - atom catalysts supported on iron oxide, and found that its activity in the selective oxidation reaction of carbon monoxide was 2 to 3 times that of nanocatalysts. They systematically studied, cooperatively tackled key problems and repeatedly verified the preparation, characterization, reaction, mechanism and theoretical simulation of single - atom catalysts.
Finally, in 2011, Academician Tao Zhang's team proposed the concept of "single - atom catalysis" in the international arena and prepared the first single - atom platinum catalyst with practical significance. This achievement is regarded as a milestone in single - atom catalysis. And this landmark breakthrough has triggered the formation and development of the field of single - atom catalysis.
The Persistent Basic Research
The proposal of the concept of "single - atom catalysis" has raised the understanding of the active sites of heterogeneous catalysis to a new height. Academician Tao Zhang introduced that after more than a decade of development, single - atom catalysis has achieved many academic achievements. In 2023 alone, more than 3600 papers on single - atom catalysis were published in the international academic community. The research field has extended to a variety of metals, supports and catalytic reactions. It can be said that more than half of the elements in the periodic table have achieved the preparation of single - atom catalysts. In addition, single - atom catalysis has shown excellent catalytic performance in more than 30 different reactions such as thermal catalysis, photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, and has also brought new developments and applications in fields such as biomedicine, enzyme catalysis, nanodevices and atomic manufacturing.
In terms of industrial transformation, in addition to Academician Tao Zhang's team applying the concept of single - atom catalysis to the field of aerospace catalysts, the single - atom rhodium catalyst prepared by Yunjie Ding's team at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been successfully applied to a 50,000 - ton industrial ethylene hydroformylation unit and has been operating stably for more than 4 years; the single - atom ultra - stable low - mercury catalyst independently developed by the Institute of Industrial Catalysis of Zhejiang University of Technology has been industrialized and applied in multiple domestic units. Academician Tao Zhang said that for the scientific research achievements of single - atom catalysis to become real productive forces and truly useful achievements, the scientific and industrial communities need to work together urgently to achieve the industrial application of more single - atom catalysts and promote the application innovation of this type of material in other cutting - edge fields.
"Reaching the market shelves and becoming commodities; reaching the bookshelves and being written into textbooks are the two pursuits of our scientific research," emphasized Academician Tao Zhang. At present, the original concept of "single - atom catalysis" has had a wide international influence, but to form a systematic theoretical system, a large number of basic research is still needed, combined with theoretical simulation and experimental research, especially through the empowerment of artificial intelligence, to form a complete theoretical innovation system.
Academician Tao Zhang further said that there is still a long way to go to form a complete original theory. On the one hand, a series of basic disciplines such as chemistry, physics, chemical engineering and computational data science need to play their full roles, exploring the new characteristics, new challenges and new applications of catalytic science at the atomic scale from different disciplinary directions; on the other hand, it is necessary to concentrate superior forces to develop relevant application technologies, including the chemical synthesis and characterization technologies of materials, expand the measurement technologies under in - situ and working conditions, and integrate a variety of spectroscopy, imaging and structural analysis methods.
In short, basic research is the source of all innovation. Academician Tao Zhang said: "After I was elected as the director of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, the slogan I put forward was that basic research and applied research should appreciate, respect, communicate and cooperate with each other. Scientific problems should be refined from the major needs of the country, and then basic research should be carried out on these problems. The 'black box' of catalysis has not been completely opened yet. For example, the dynamic research of the catalytic process needs to be observed at the femtosecond time scale faster than chemical reactions; another example is how to combine the structural design of catalysts with artificial intelligence technology. All these require more young researchers to engage in this field."
Currently, with the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a basic science center for single - atom catalysis has been established in China. Relevant national departments have successively built some large - scale scientific facilities. The basic conditions for single - atom catalysis research in China have been greatly improved, and China has become a high - land for international single - atom catalysis research. The spring of single - atom catalysis has arrived.
