Race on engineering noble metal single-atom electrocatalysts for water splitting

Abstract

Constructing noble metal single-atom catalysts (NMSACs) is essential to boosting the water splitting electrocatalysis by virtue of their maximum atom utilization and distinctive electronic structure, which can concurrently reduce the usage of noble metal and maintain high catalytic activity. In the past few years, great progress has been achieved in the field of NMSACs, including the structure and local coordination environment modifications, which significantly promote the electrochemical performance toward water splitting and deepen the understandings of the underlying mechanisms. Herein, in this review, the recent advances of the NMSACs in the field of water splitting applications have been comprehensively summarized, with a special emphasis on the advantages, synthetic strategies, and characterizations of the NMSACs. Moreover, some representative examples regarding the applications of NMSACs toward water splitting are also manifested according to the theoretical and experimental results. Furthermore, the challenges and future potentials of the NMSACs are also manifested to offer guidance for the development of more advanced NMSACs.