Surfactant encapsulated palladium-polyoxometalates: controlled assembly and their application as single-atom catalysts

Abstract

The challenge with single-atom catalysts (SACs) is in designing a highly definite structure with accurate location of the single atom and high catalytic efficiency. The noble metal substituted polyoxometalates seem to be a kind of SAC because of their well resolved crystal structure. Here, we got two kinds of assembly structures (nanorolls and hollow spindles) based on the palladium substituted Wells-Dawson polyoxometalate (Pd-POM), which consists of isolated Pd atoms. Both the nanorolls and hollow spindles showed high catalytic activity for both the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction and semihydrogenation reaction. The difference of the chemical surroundings between the nanorolls and hollow spindles leads to their discrepancy in the catalytic activity of semihydrogenation.