Ir1Znn Bimetallic Site for Efficient Production of Hydrogen from Methanol

Methanol partial oxidation is an extremely promising route of realizing the hydrogen production for onboard such as in automobiles. Here, we report the design of a catalyst comprising isolated singly dispersed Ir1Znn sites and their support ZnO (Ir1Znn/ZnO), which exhibits high catalytic activity in terms of turnover frequency of producing 13.0 H-2 molecules from each Ir1Znn site per second. The selectivities for H-2 and CO2 productions on Ir1Znn/ZnO are 99% at 310 degrees C, respectively. Compared to catalysts of bimetallic nano particle supported on ZnO (Ir-Zn/ZnO), the singly dispersed Ir1Znn bimetallic sites with Ir atoms at cationic state are responsible for the high activity of this single-atom catalyst. The single dispersion of Ir atoms on this catalyst minimizes choices of binding configurations of reactants or intermediates in contrast to the coexistence of multiple binding sites of Ir atoms and Ir-Zn alloy leading to high selectivities for producing H-2 and CO2. This study extended the horizontal of bimetallic catalysts through immobilization of isolated bimetallic sites on an inert support.