Ultrafine copper nanoclusters and single sites for Fenton-like reactions with high atom utilities

Abstract

© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2020. Catalysts containing both nanoclusters and single atom metal sites have received increasing attention because of their superior catalytic activities to their aggregated counterparts. Herein, ultrafine CuO nanoclusters along with Cu single atoms were anchored onto typical mesoporous silica SBA-15 for Fenton-like reactions, and the obtained catalysts were named UNCu-SBA. Both advanced characterization and computational studies offered convincing evidence for the unique structural feature. XPS and XANES identified the valence state of Cu(ii) on UNCu-SBA. Fenton-like reactions further demonstrated that UNCu-SBA manifested higher activities in comparison with APCu-SBA, which contained aggregated CuO particles. Moreover, the Cu mass normalized rate constant of UNCu-SBA was 18 times larger than that of APCu-SBA, suggesting an exceptional Cu atom utility in UNCu-SBA. The UNCu-SBA catalyst was able to activate H2O2to generate ?OH in a wider pH range of 4-7 than in typical Fenton reactions (2-4). This may direct future advances toward AOP nanocatalysis.

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2020

ISSN

20518153

Volume

7

Issue

9

Publication Title

Environmental Science: Nano

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

School

School of Engineering

RAS ID

32877

Funders

Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province

Comments

Yin, Y., Li, W., Xu, C., Shi, L., Zhang, L. C., Ao, Z., ... Sun, H. (2020). Ultrafine copper nanoclusters and single sites for Fenton-like reactions with high atom utilities. Environmental Science: Nano, 7(9), 2595-2606. https://doi.org/10.1039/d0en00505c

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subscription content

First Page

2595

Last Page

2606

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1039/d0en00505c