Metal alloys have been widely applied for heterogeneous catalysis, especially alkane dehydrogenation. However, the catalysts always suffer from sintering and coke deposition due to the rigorous reaction conditions. Herein, we described an original approach to prepare a catalyst where highly dispersed Pt clusters alloying with copper were encapsulated in silicalite-1 (S-1) zeolite for propane dehydrogenation (PDH). The introduction of Cu species significantly enhances the catalytic activity and prolongs the lifetime of the catalyst. 0.1Pt0.4CuK@S-1 exhibits a propane conversion of 24.8% with 98.2% selectivity of propene, and the specific activity of propylene formation is up to 32 mol·g_Pt⁻¹·h⁻¹ at 500 °C. No obvious deactivation is observed even after 73 h on stream, affording an extremely low deactivation constant of 0.00032 h⁻¹. The excellent activity and stability are ascribed to the confinement of zeolites and the stabilization of Cu species for Pt clusters.

Compared with the gas-solid phase reactions, the epoxidation of light olefins in the liquid phase could realize the highly selective preparation of epoxides at a lower temperature. Nevertheless, the C=C bond of light olefins is more difficult to activate, and it is still a challenge to realize the dual activation of the oxidant and light olefins in one reaction system. In this contribution, an oxametallacycle reinforced nanocomposite (Mo(O₂)₂@RT) is prepared via an oxidative pretreatment strategy, and its epoxidation performance to 2-methylpropene in liquid-phase with tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as an oxidant is evaluated. A set of advanced characterizations including field emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, in-situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), electron spin-resonance spectroscopy, and high-resolution mass spectrometer are implemented to confirm the physicochemical properties and the catalytic behaviors of Mo(O₂)₂@RT. This catalyst has a fast kinetic response and exhibits excellent catalytic activity in 2-methylpropene epoxidation to produce 2-methylpropylene oxide (MPO; select.: 99.7%; yield: 92%), along with good reusability and scalability. Moreover, the main epoxidation mechanism is deduced that TBHP is activated by Mo(O₂)₂@RT to generate the highly active tert-butyl peroxide radical, which realizes the epoxidation of 2-methylpropene to yield MPO.

Recently, Cu-based single-atom catalysts (SACs) have garnered increasing attention as substitutes for platinum-based catalysts in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Therefore, a facile, economical, and efficient synthetic methodology for the preparation of a high-performance Cu-based SAC electrocatalyst for the ORR is extremely desired, but is also significantly challenging. In this study, we propose a ball-milling method to synthesize isolated metal SACs embedded in S,N-codoped nanocarbon (M-NSDC, M = Cu, Fe, Co, Ni, Mn, Pt, and Pd). In particular, the Cu-NSDC SACs exhibit high electrochemical activity for the ORR with half-wave potential (E_1/2) of 0.84 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), 20 mV higher than Pt/C) in alkaline electrolyte, excellent stability, and electrocatalytic selectivity. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrated that the desorption of OH* intermediates was the rate-determining step over Cu-NSDC. This study creates a pathway for high-performance ORR single atomic electrocatalysts for fuel cell applications and provides opportunities to convert biowaste materials into commercial opportunities.

Substrate specificity is a hallmark of enzymatic catalysis. In this work, the biomimetic catalytic oxidation of styrene and cyclohexanone by iron (Ⅲ) porphyrins and molecular oxygen was carried out, and remarkable differences in efficiency were observed. The specificity of the substrates for biomimetic catalytic oxidation was investigated by kinetics and mechanistic studies. Kinetics studies revealed that the oxidation of styrene followed Michaelis–Menten kinetics with K_M ​= ​8.99 ​mol L^-1, but the oxidation of cyclohexanone followed first-order kinetics with k_obs ​= ​1.46 ​× ​10⁻⁴ ​s⁻¹, indicating that the styrene epoxidation by metalloporphyrins exhibited characteristics of enzyme-like catalysis, while the oxidation of cyclohexanone was in agreement with the general rules of chemical catalysis. Different catalytic mechanisms for the two substrates were discussed by operando electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, operando UV–vis spectroscopy, and KI/starch experiments. Substrate specificity was concluded to be attributed to the stability of high-valence species and oxygen transfer rate.

Cost-effective catalysts for the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are critical to energy conversion applications and environmental protection. The main bottleneck of this process is the development of an efficient, stable, and cost-effective catalyst that can oxidize HCHO at low temperature. Here, an advanced material consisting of manganese cobalt oxide nanosheet arrays uniformly covered on a carbon textile is successfully fabricated by a simple anodic electrodeposition method combined with post annealing treatment, and can be directly applied as a high-performance catalytic material for HCHO elimination. Benefiting from the increased surface oxygen species and improved redox properties, the as-prepared manganese cobalt oxide nanosheets showed substantially higher catalytic activity for HCHO oxidation. The catalyst completely converted HCHO to CO₂ at temperatures as low as 100 ℃, and exhibited excellent catalytic stability. Such impressive results are rarely achieved by non-precious metal-based catalysts at such low temperatures.