DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Recent Advances on Computational Modeling of Supported Single-Atom and Cluster Catalysts: Characterization, Catalyst–Support Interaction, and Active Site Heterogeneity

Journal Article · · Catalysts
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]
  1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  2. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of North Texas, Denton, TX (United States)
  3. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of Dallas, Irving, TX (United States)

To satisfy the need for catalyst materials with high activity, selectivity, and stability for energy conversion, material design and discovery guided by theoretical insights are a necessity. In the past decades, the rise in theoretical investigations into the properties of catalyst materials, reaction mechanisms, and catalyst design principles has shed light on the catalysis field. Quantitative structure–activity relationships have been developed through incorporating spectroscopic simulations, electronic structure calculations, and reaction mechanistic studies. Here, in this review, we report the state-of-the-art computational approaches to catalyst materials characterization for supported single-atom and cluster catalysts utilizing spectroscopic simulations, i.e., XANES simulation, and material properties investigation via electronic-structure calculations. Furthermore, approaches regarding reaction mechanisms, focusing on active site heterogeneity, are also discussed.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Chemical Sciences, Geosciences & Biosciences Division (CSGB)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
2434021
Journal Information:
Catalysts, Journal Name: Catalysts Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 14; ISSN 2073-4344
Publisher:
MDPICopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (159)

Opportunities and Challenges of Interface Engineering in Bimetallic Nanostructure for Enhanced Electrocatalysis journal November 2018
Dynamic Evolution of Active Sites in Electrocatalytic CO 2 Reduction Reaction: Fundamental Understanding and Recent Progress journal January 2022
Comprehensive Understandings into Complete Reconstruction of Precatalysts: Synthesis, Applications, and Characterizations journal May 2021
Engineering Local Coordination Environments of Atomically Dispersed and Heteroatom‐Coordinated Single Metal Site Electrocatalysts for Clean Energy‐Conversion journal November 2019
Changing the Activity of Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction by Tuning the Surface Electronic Structure journal April 2006
Chemistry with Methane: Concepts Rather than Recipes journal June 2011
A Graphene‐Supported Single‐Atom FeN 5 Catalytic Site for Efficient Electrochemical CO 2 Reduction journal October 2019
Electroreduction of CO 2 on Single-Site Copper-Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Material: Selective Formation of Ethanol and Reversible Restructuration of the Metal Sites journal September 2019
Manipulating the Geometric and Electronic Structures of Manganese Nitrides for Ammonia Synthesis journal March 2020
Chemistry with ADF journal January 2001
Improved grid-based algorithm for Bader charge allocation journal January 2007
Computational Screening of Efficient Single‐Atom Catalysts Based on Graphitic Carbon Nitride (g‐C 3 N 4 ) for Nitrogen Electroreduction journal October 2018
Defect Engineering on CeO2‐Based Catalysts for Heterogeneous Catalytic Applications journal September 2021
Software update: the ORCA program system, version 4.0: Software update journal July 2017
Atomistic modeling of electrocatalysis: Are we there yet? journal August 2020
Software update: The ORCA program system—Version 5.0 journal March 2022
The ORCA program system: The ORCA program system journal June 2011
Universality in Heterogeneous Catalysis journal July 2002
The electronic structure effect in heterogeneous catalysis journal April 2005
CatMAP: A Software Package for Descriptor-Based Microkinetic Mapping of Catalytic Trends journal February 2015
In Situ X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Studies of Nanoscale Electrocatalysts journal June 2019
Electronic factors determining the reactivity of metal surfaces journal December 1995
Efficient use of the resolution of the identity approximation in time-dependent density functional calculations with hybrid density functionals journal August 2002
Dehydrogenation and oxydehydrogenation of paraffins to olefins journal November 2001
Intrinsic properties of nitrogen-rich carbon nitride for oxygen reduction reaction journal January 2020
Evolution of Ni coordination configuration during one-pot pyrolysis synthesis of Ni-g-C3N4 single atom catalyst journal October 2023
Identifying Cu-oxo species in Cu-zeolites by XAS: A theoretical survey by DFT-assisted XANES simulation and EXAFS wavelet transform journal April 2020
On silsesquioxanes’ accuracy as molecular models for silica-grafted complexes in heterogeneous catalysis journal March 2010
Mechanistic understanding of support effect on the activity and selectivity of indium oxide catalysts for CO2 hydrogenation journal December 2021
Carrier Dynamics Engineering for High-Performance Electron-Transport-Layer-free Perovskite Photovoltaics journal October 2018
A fast and robust algorithm for Bader decomposition of charge density journal June 2006
A comparative study of synthesized and commercial A-type zeolite-supported Pt catalysts for selective CO oxidation in H2H2-rich stream journal January 2008
The Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi relation and the volcano curve in heterogeneous catalysis journal May 2004
Influence of basicity on 1,3-butadiene formation from catalytic 2,3-butanediol dehydration over γ-alumina journal December 2016
An alloy chemistry strategy to tailoring the d-band center of Ni by Cu for efficient and selective catalytic hydrogenation of furfural journal March 2020
Understanding the dynamic evolution of atomically dispersed Cu catalyst for CO2 electrochemical conversion using integrated XANES analysis and mechanistic studies journal September 2023
Tuning/exploiting Strong Metal-Support Interaction (SMSI) in Heterogeneous Catalysis journal May 2017
Characterization of oxygenated species at water/Pt(111) interfaces from DFT energetics and XPS simulations journal November 2016
Engineering atomically dispersed metal sites for electrocatalytic energy conversion journal October 2019
Development of activity–descriptor relationships for supported metal ion hydrogenation catalysts on silica journal September 2018
Modeling the Structural Heterogeneity of Vicinal Silanols and Its Effects on TiCl4 Grafting onto Amorphous Silica journal April 2022
In Situ / Operando Electrocatalyst Characterization by X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy journal September 2020
Computational Ligand Descriptors for Catalyst Design journal October 2018
Electronic Structure of Manganese Corroles Revisited: X-ray Structures, Optical and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopies, and Electrochemistry as Probes of Ligand Noninnocence journal April 2018
OpenMKM: An Open-Source C++ Multiscale Modeling Simulator for Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalytic Reactions journal May 2023
Site-Averaged Ab Initio Kinetics: Importance Learning for Multistep Reactions on Amorphous Supports journal April 2023
Computational Aspects of Single-Molecule Kinetics for Coupled Catalytic Cycles: A Spectral Analysis journal June 2022
Hydrogen Activation by Silica-Supported Metal Ion Catalysts: Catalytic Properties of Metals and Performance of DFT Functionals journal December 2018
Interpreting the Operando XANES of Surface-Supported Subnanometer Clusters: When Fluxionality, Oxidation State, and Size Effect Fight journal April 2020
Graphene-Based Dual-Metal Sites for Oxygen Reduction Reaction: A Theoretical Study journal January 2021
Single-Molecule Kinetics of Styrene Hydrogenation on Silica-Supported Vanadium: The Role of Disorder for Single-Atom Catalysts journal September 2021
Interpreting the Operando X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure of Supported Cu and CuPd Clusters in Conditions of Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Propane: Dynamic Changes in Composition and Size journal January 2022
Integrated Experimental and Computational K-Edge X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure Analysis of Vanadium Catalysts journal July 2022
Unraveling Electronic Trends in O* and OH* Surface Adsorption in the MO 2 Transition-Metal Oxide Series journal April 2022
Mitigating Coke Formations for Dry Reforming of Methane on Dual-Site Catalysts: A Microkinetic Modeling Study journal January 2023
Adsorption, Dissociation, and Spillover of Hydrogen over Au/TiO 2 Catalysts: The Effects of Cluster Size and Metal–Support Interaction from DFT journal July 2018
Tuning Methane Activation Chemistry on Alkaline Earth Metal Oxides by Doping journal September 2018
Modeling C–H Bond Activation and Oxidations of Alkanes over Cu–MOR Using First-Principles Methods journal April 2019
First-Principles Study of the Ligand Substituent Effect on ORR Catalysis by Metallocorroles journal April 2020
Machine-Learning-Augmented Chemisorption Model for CO 2 Electroreduction Catalyst Screening journal August 2015
Tailoring the Catalytic Properties of Metal Nanoparticles via Support Interactions journal August 2016
Unexpected Mechanistic Variants in the Thermal Gas-Phase Activation of Methane journal June 2016
Nontraditional Catalyst Supports in Surface Organometallic Chemistry journal September 2020
Computational Investigation of the Role of Active Site Heterogeneity for a Supported Organovanadium(III) Hydrogenation Catalyst journal June 2021
Enhancement of the Oxygen Reduction Reaction Activity of Pt by Tuning Its d-Band Center via Transition Metal Oxide Support Interactions journal July 2021
Structure–Activity Relationships in Lewis Acid–Base Heterogeneous Catalysis journal March 2022
Lithium-Ion Battery Materials as Tunable, “Redox Non-Innocent” Catalyst Supports journal June 2022
Effect of Siloxane Ring Strain and Cation Charge Density on the Formation of Coordinately Unsaturated Metal Sites on Silica: Insights from Density Functional Theory (DFT) Studies journal November 2015
Significant Contribution of Intrinsic Carbon Defects to Oxygen Reduction Activity journal October 2015
Toward Benchmarking in Catalysis Science: Best Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities journal March 2016
Tuning Electronic Structures of Nonprecious Ternary Alloys Encapsulated in Graphene Layers for Optimizing Overall Water Splitting Activity journal December 2016
Ethylene Hydrogenation over Pt/TiO 2 : A Charge-Sensitive Reaction journal February 2017
Suppression of Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Electrochemical N 2 Reduction Using Single-Atom Catalysts: A Computational Guideline journal July 2018
Approaches for Understanding and Controlling Interfacial Effects in Oxide-Supported Metal Catalysts journal July 2018
Operando DRIFTS and DFT Study of Propane Dehydrogenation over Solid- and Liquid-Supported Ga x Pt y Catalysts journal February 2019
In Situ Infrared Spectroscopy as a Tool for Monitoring Molecular Catalyst for Hydroformylation in Continuous Processes journal April 2019
Evaluating the Catalytic Efficiency of Paired, Single-Atom Catalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction journal July 2019
Experimental Observation of Redox-Induced Fe–N Switching Behavior as a Determinant Role for Oxygen Reduction Activity journal October 2015
Tailoring the Edge Structure of Molybdenum Disulfide toward Electrocatalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide journal December 2016
Interfacing Epitaxial Dinickel Phosphide to 2D Nickel Thiophosphate Nanosheets for Boosting Electrocatalytic Water Splitting journal July 2019
Theoretical Analysis of Fe K-Edge XANES on Iron Pentacarbonyl journal March 2020
Improved Oxygen Reduction Activity in Heteronuclear FeCo-Codoped Graphene: A Theoretical Study journal September 2019
Single-Atom Catalysts: A New Frontier in Heterogeneous Catalysis journal April 2013
The Protonation States of Oxo-Bridged Mn IV Dimers Resolved by Experimental and Computational Mn K Pre-Edge X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy journal October 2013
Silsesquioxanes as models for silica surfaces journal March 1989
A New Type of Strong Metal–Support Interaction and the Production of H 2 through the Transformation of Water on Pt/CeO 2 (111) and Pt/CeO x /TiO 2 (110) Catalysts journal May 2012
Oxidation State and Surface Reconstruction of Cu under CO 2 Reduction Conditions from In Situ X-ray Characterization journal December 2020
Deciphering the Phillips Catalyst by Orbital Analysis and Supervised Machine Learning from Cr Pre-edge XANES of Molecular Libraries journal May 2021
A Theory-Guided X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy Approach for Identifying Active Sites in Atomically Dispersed Transition-Metal Catalysts journal November 2021
Multilevel Computational Studies Reveal the Importance of Axial Ligand for Oxygen Reduction Reaction on Fe–N–C Materials journal August 2022
Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Methanol over Size-Selected Cu 4 Clusters at Low Pressures journal July 2015
Sub-4 nm PtZn Intermetallic Nanoparticles for Enhanced Mass and Specific Activities in Catalytic Electrooxidation Reaction journal March 2017
Design of N-Coordinated Dual-Metal Sites: A Stable and Active Pt-Free Catalyst for Acidic Oxygen Reduction Reaction journal November 2017
Evidence for Redox Mechanisms in Organometallic Chemisorption and Reactivity on Sulfated Metal Oxides journal April 2018
Versatile Strategy for Tuning ORR Activity of a Single Fe-N 4 Site by Controlling Electron-Withdrawing/Donating Properties of a Carbon Plane journal March 2019
Electrophilic Organoiridium(III) Pincer Complexes on Sulfated Zirconia for Hydrocarbon Activation and Functionalization journal March 2019
Origin of the Overpotential for Oxygen Reduction at a Fuel-Cell Cathode journal November 2004
Crystal Orbital Hamilton Population (COHP) Analysis As Projected from Plane-Wave Basis Sets journal June 2011
CO 2 Reduction on Transition Metal (Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu) Surfaces: In Comparison with Homogeneous Catalysis journal February 2012
Brønsted−Evans−Polanyi Relation of Multistep Reactions and Volcano Curve in Heterogeneous Catalysis journal February 2008
Prediction of Iron K-Edge Absorption Spectra Using Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory journal December 2008
Unravelling the Nature of Gold Surface Sites by Combining IR Spectroscopy and DFT Calculations. Implications in Catalysis journal August 2009
Simulation of XPS C1s Spectra of Organic Monolayers by Quantum Chemical Methods journal April 2013
Why gold is the noblest of all the metals journal July 1995
Mild oxidation of methane to methanol or acetic acid on supported isolated rhodium catalysts journal November 2017
Towards the computational design of solid catalysts journal April 2009
High performance platinum single atom electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction journal July 2017
Single-site trinuclear copper oxygen clusters in mordenite for selective conversion of methane to methanol journal June 2015
Identification of catalytic sites for oxygen reduction in iron- and nitrogen-doped graphene materials journal August 2015
Single rhodium atoms anchored in micropores for efficient transformation of methane under mild conditions journal March 2018
Interfacial electronic structure engineering on molybdenum sulfide for robust dual-pH hydrogen evolution journal September 2021
Dynamic transformation of cubic copper catalysts during CO2 electroreduction and its impact on catalytic selectivity journal November 2021
Understanding X-ray absorption spectra by means of descriptors and machine learning algorithms journal December 2021
Facet-dependent active sites of a single Cu2O particle photocatalyst for CO2 reduction to methanol journal November 2019
Control of metal-support interactions in heterogeneous catalysts to enhance activity and selectivity journal November 2019
Induced activation of the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol journal January 2022
Natural bond Orbitals and Extensions of Localized Bonding Concepts journal January 2001
Computational studies of electrochemical CO 2 reduction on subnanometer transition metal clusters journal January 2014
Triggering the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of the inert two-dimensional MoS 2 surface via single-atom metal doping journal January 2015
Correction: Ligand K-edge XAS, DFT, and TDDFT analysis of pincer linker variations in Rh(i) PNP complexes: reactivity insights from electronic structure journal January 2016
Machine-learning prediction of the d-band center for metals and bimetals journal January 2016
Isolated, well-defined organovanadium( iii ) on silica: single-site catalyst for hydrogenation of alkenes and alkynes journal January 2017
Metal–support interactions in catalysts for environmental remediation journal January 2017
Modulating the oxygen reduction activity of heteroatom-doped carbon catalysts via the triple effect: charge, spin density and ligand effect journal January 2018
Atomically dispersed metal–nitrogen–carbon catalysts for fuel cells: advances in catalyst design, electrode performance, and durability improvement journal January 2020
Site-averaged kinetics for catalysts on amorphous supports: an importance learning algorithm journal January 2019
Grafting metal complexes onto amorphous supports: from elementary steps to catalyst site populations via kernel regression journal January 2020
Theoretical insights into single-atom catalysts journal January 2020
Shifting the scaling relations of single-atom catalysts for facile methane activation by tuning the coordination number journal January 2021
Trends in computational molecular catalyst design journal January 2021
Supported vanadium oxide in heterogeneous catalysis: elucidating the structure–activity relationship with spectroscopy journal January 2009
EXAFS as a tool to interrogate the size and shape of mono and bimetallic catalyst nanoparticles journal January 2010
Density functional theory calculations of XPS binding energy shift for nitrogen-containing graphene-like structures journal January 2013
A climbing image nudged elastic band method for finding saddle points and minimum energy paths journal December 2000
A dimer method for finding saddle points on high dimensional potential surfaces using only first derivatives journal October 1999
Mapping XANES spectra on structural descriptors of copper oxide clusters using supervised machine learning journal October 2019
WIEN2k: An APW+lo program for calculating the properties of solids journal February 2020
The ORCA quantum chemistry program package journal June 2020
Density functional theory in surface chemistry and catalysis journal January 2011
Copper nanoparticle ensembles for selective electroreduction of CO 2 to C 2 –C 3 products journal September 2017
Fe-porphyrin carbon matrix as a bifunctional catalyst for oxygen reduction and CO 2 reduction from theoretical perspective journal November 2018
M-porphyrin (M = Mn, Co) carbon materials as oxygen reduction catalysts from density functional studies journal November 2019
What is NBO analysis and how is it useful? journal June 2016
Practical principles of density functional theory for catalytic reaction simulations on metal surfaces – from theory to applications journal March 2017
Self-consistent aspects of x-ray absorption calculations journal August 2009
QUANTUM ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials journal September 2009
A grid-based Bader analysis algorithm without lattice bias journal January 2009
Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO journal October 2017
Finite difference method accelerated with sparse solvers for structural analysis of the metal-organic complexes journal May 2016
Machine learning approaches for ELNES/XANES journal January 2020
Real-space multiple-scattering calculation and interpretation of x-ray-absorption near-edge structure journal September 1998
X-ray absorption near-edge structure calculations beyond the muffin-tin approximation journal March 2001
First-principles calculations of x-ray absorption in a scheme based on ultrasoft pseudopotentials: From α -quartz to high- T c compounds journal August 2009
Projector augmented wave calculation of x-ray absorption spectra at the L 2 , 3 edges journal May 2013
Calculating X-ray absorption near-edge structure at very low energy journal December 2002
Fundamental Electrochemical Insights of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofiber Architecture as a Catalyst Support for ORR journal January 2020
Platinum Deposited Nitrogen-Doped Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanofibers as Methanol Tolerant Catalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction with Improved Durability journal October 2021
The Crystal Orbital Hamilton Population (COHP) Method as a Tool to Visualize and Analyze Chemical Bonding in Intermetallic Compounds journal May 2018
DFT Study on Intermetallic Pd–Cu Alloy with Cover Layer Pd as Efficient Catalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction journal December 2017