A general approach to 3D-printed single-atom catalysts

A mass production route to single-atom catalysts (SACs) is crucial for their end use application. To date, the direct fabrication of SACs via a simple and economic manufacturing route remains a challenge, with current approaches relying on convoluted processes using expensive components. Here, a straightforward and cost-effective three-dimensional (3D) printing approach is developed to fabricate a library of SACs. Despite changing synthetic parameters, including centre transition metal atom, metal loading, coordination environment and spatial geometry, the products show similar atomic dispersion nature of single metal sites, demonstrating the generality of the approach. The 3D-printed SACs exhibited excellent activity and stability in the nitrate reduction reaction. It is expected that this 3D-printing technique can be used as a method for large-scale commercial production of SACs, thus enabling the use of these materials in a broad spectrum of industrial applications. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are attractive for a variety of applications but their synthesis remains challenging. Now, a scalable and economical 3D-printing approach has been developed for producing libraries of SACs using a variety of metals, coordination environments and spatial geometries.