Isolated atomic catalysts encapsulated in MOF for ultrafast water pollutant treatment

Atomic noble metals stand as one of the most advanced catalysts because of their unique properties and interaction with the reactants. However, due to their high activity, noble atomic catalysts tend to aggregate and deactivate in practical application. Moreover, supports aimed to disperse these atomic catalysts often suffer from weak confinement and poor porosity, thus limited the catalytic efficiency of noble atoms. Here, we report the facile encapsulation of atomic noble catalyst in cheap cerous metal-organic framework (Ce-MOF) crystals to create a robust catalyst that could deliver high catalytic performance for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol without decay in long-term cycling test. Specifically, Au atoms encapsulated in Ce-MOF exhibited ultrahigh turnover frequency (TOF) of 131 min(-1) for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol in minutes, consuming only 10% precious metals compared with state-of-the-art catalysts operated under same condition.

Automated summary

The study introduces a method of encapsulating atomic noble metal catalysts in cerous metal-organic framework crystals to achieve high catalytic performance. In this experiment, the encapsulated gold atoms showed lower precious metal consumption and high turnover frequency for the reduction reaction of 4-nitrophenol.