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Research Article | Open Access

Atomically precise Pd8 nanocluster encapsulated in a hierarchically engineered nanoreactor towards enhanced catalysis

Hui Yang1,§, Yi-Ming Li1,2,§ ( ), Jinhui Hu1, Dongxia Shi1, Yongkang Ge1, Jiwei Feng1, Hongting Sheng1 ( ), Manzhou Zhu1,2 ( )
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Atomic Engineering of Advanced Materials, Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Chemistry for Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Functionalized Materials, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials of Ministry of Education, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
School of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Green Carbon Chemistry, Fuyang Normal University, Fuyang 236041, China

§ Hui Yang and Yi-Ming Li contributed equally to this work.

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Graphical Abstract

Hierarchically engineered metal-organic framework nanoreactor provides atomically precise nanoclusters (NCs) with a capacious microenvironment and enhanced mass transfer, which ultimately boosts the catalytic performance of encapsulated NC, showing much better activity than its confined counterpart and even better than the free NC.

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as superior hosting matrices for atomically precise nanoclusters (NCs) encapsulation, offering excellent physical and chemical protections for advanced catalysis. Nevertheless, the MOF coating significantly reduces the NC catalytic efficiency due to the diffusion barriers and the confined microenvironments. Herein, a hierarchically engineered MOF nanoreactor was constructed by controlled structural etching for NC immobilization. This nanoreactor possesses hierarchical pores to accelerate the diffusion rate of reactants and creates hollow structures to unleash the confined NC molecules from the rigid MOF network to a capacious microenvironment. The enhanced mass transfer, improved freedom of NCs, and outstanding stability collectively boosted the catalytic activity of the nanoreactor. By controlling the etching time, freestanding Pd8@zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)-TA10 displayed a catalytic efficiency that was 3.17 times greater than that of the initial confined Pd8@ZIF-8 and even better than free Pd8. This work opens a new strategy to reduce the inherent limitations of porous matrixes for developing high-performance catalysts.

Keywords

metal nanoclustersmetal-organic frameworkszeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)hierarchical poresnanoreactor

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Nano Research
Volume 18 Issue 3,
March 2025
Article number: 94907208
DOI: 10.26599/NR.2025.94907208
Cite this article:
Yang H, Li Y-M, Hu J, et al. Atomically precise Pd8 nanocluster encapsulated in a hierarchically engineered nanoreactor towards enhanced catalysis. Nano Research, 2025, 18(3): 94907208. https://doi.org/10.26599/NR.2025.94907208

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Received: 08 November 2024
Revised: 17 December 2024
Accepted: 20 December 2024
Published: 22 January 2025
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Tsinghua University Press.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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