Breaking Boundaries: Enhancing Catalysis With Co-Cu Alloy Nanoparticles

Scientists have developed Co-Cu alloy nanoparticles that efficiently activated chemical reactions for pollutant degradation, outperforming traditional methods and providing insights into atomic-level interactions in catalysts.

Recent research has focused on the combined effects of atomic clusters (ACs) or nanoparticles (NPs) and single atoms. However, prior studies have typically concentrated on basic interactions between pure NPs and single atoms (SAs), offering a limited perspective. They have not fully explored how modifications to NPs or ACs could enhance the overall activity of the complete metal NPs/ACs@M-N-C entity. Consequently, there is still much to learn about the precise construction and performance enhancement of the entire metal NPs/ACs@M-N-C structure.

In a new study, Co-Cu alloy NPs@Co-N-C (CC@CNC) was constructed using Co/Cu-modified zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) as precursor, followed by the pyrolysis and acid etching. The incorporation of Cu-induced formation of Co-Cu alloy NPs, originating from the low Tammann temperature of Cu, which was verified by the negative cohesive energy of Co10Cu3 (−0.06454, intending to aggregation) compared to that of Co13 (+1.690995, intending to dispersion).