Carbon Nitride Based Materials: The Ultimate Support for Single-Atom Catalysis

The topic of single-atom catalysis has attracted attention in the last few years due to its unique and interesting properties compared to traditional heterogeneous catalysis. The development of the single-atom catalysis (SAC) topic is mainly limited by two reasons: 1) Synthetic routes to stabilize metal single-atoms, maintain a good surface dispersion, and prevent agglomeration; 2) Availability of characterization techniques able to confirm the metal stabilization as single-atoms and its differentiation from a metal cluster and metal nanoparticles, ideally in a quantitative way. In recent years the development and dissemination of highly sensitive techniques, it has become easier to identify catalytic sites of metal single-atom and correctly relate that with the catalytic activity of the system. On the synthetic, it seems that the ideal support for single-atoms catalysis has been found in the form of carbon nitride-based materials, where not only the above-mentioned reasons that hindered the application of single-atoms has been potentially addressed, but moreover, the interaction of the support with the metallic single-atoms enhance their catalytic properties and thus allowing their application in highly desirable chemical reactions, such as water-splitting, carbon coupling, hydrogenation and CO2 reduction. Here, we aim to discuss the recent field of the single-atom catalysis, especially focused on the potential of the carbon nitride materials in this field.

Automated summary

The topic of single-atom catalysis has gained attention in recent years due to its unique properties compared to traditional heterogeneous catalysis. The development of single-atom catalysis is limited by the synthesis of metal single-atoms and the availability of characterization techniques. However, the use of carbon nitride-based materials as supports for single-atom catalysis has shown promise in addressing these limitations and enhancing catalytic properties.