Synergize Strong and Reactive Metal‐Support Interactions to Construct Sub‐2 nm Metal Phosphide Cluster for Enhanced Selective Hydrogenation Activities.

Chen, Zemin; Li, Xinyu; Xu, Guangyue; Xiao, Tianci; Wang, Dechen; Wang, Chufei; Zhang, Kaihang; Li, Jiong; Pan, Yang; Qiao, Yan; Zhang, Ying

Strong metal‐support interactions (SMSI) are crucial for stabilizing sub‐2 nm metal sites, e.g. single atom (M1) or cluster (Mn). However, further optimizing sub‐2 nm sites to break the activity–stability trade‐off due to excessive interactions remains significant challenges. Accordingly, for the first time, we propose synergizing SMSI with reactive metal‐support interactions (RMSI). Comprehensive characterization confirms that the SMSI stabilizes the metal and regulates the aggregation of Ni1 into Nin site within sub‐2 nm. Meanwhile, RMSI modulates Nin through sufficiently activating P in the support and eventually generates sub‐2 nm metal phosphide Ni2P cluster (Ni2Pn). The synergetic metal‐support interactions triggered the adaptive coordination and electronic structure optimization of Ni2Pn, leading to the desired substrate adsorption‐desorption kinetics. Consequently, the activity of Ni2Pn site greatly enhanced towards the selective hydrogenations of p‐chloronitrobenzene and alkynyl alcohol. The formation rates of target products are up to 20.2 and 3.0 times greater than that of Ni1 and Nin site, respectively. This work may open a new direction for metal‐support interactions and promote innovation and application of active sites below 2 nm.

METAL clusters; HETEROGENEOUS catalysts; METAL catalysts; ELECTRONIC structure; HYDROGENATION

Angewandte Chemie, 2025, Vol 137, Issue 1, p1

0044-8249

Academic Journal

10.1002/ange.202413788