Greatly Enhancing Catalytic Activity of Graphene by Doping the Underlying Metal Substrate

Graphene-based solid-state catalysis represents a new direction in applications of graphene and has attracted a lot of interests recently. However, the difficulty in fine control and large-scale production of previously proposed graphene catalysts greatly limits their industrial applications. Here we present a novel way to enhance the catalytic activity of graphene, which is highly efficient yet easy to fabricate and control. By first-principles calculations, we show that when the underlying metal substrate is doped with impurities, the catalytic activity of the supported graphene can be drastically enhanced. Graphene supported on a Fe/Ni(111) surface is chosen as a model catalyst, and the chemical reaction of CO oxidation is used to probe the catalytic activity of graphene. When the underlying Fe/Ni(111) substrate is impurity free, the graphene is catalytically inactive. When a Zn atom is doped into the substrate, the catalytic activity of the supported graphene is greatly enhanced, and the reaction barrier of the catalyzed CO oxidation is reduced to less than 0.5 eV. Intriguing reaction mechanism of catalyzed CO oxidation is revealed. These studies suggest a new class of graphene-based catalysts and pave the way for future applications of graphene in solid-state catalysis.