Electrochemical Energy Conversion with Single Atoms

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are widely used to achieve energy conversion reactions, including hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), CO ₂ reduction reaction (CRR), and N ₂ reduction reaction (NRR). The unique interaction between single metal sites and heteroatoms in matrix not only prevent metal atoms from agglomeration by the formation of strong bond but also modulate the electronic and geometric structures of the metal centers, leading to the promising electrocatalytic activity. Accordingly, many earth-abundant SACs (involving Ni, Fe, Co, Cu, etc.) achieve high performances for these energy-conversion reactions. Herein, we mainly focus on recent advances in developing nonprecious SACs for energy-related electrocatalytic reactions (involving HER, OER, CRR, and N ₂ RR) and understanding of the structure-activity relationship.