Abstract
Biofuels have been derived from various feedstocks by using thermochemical or biochemical procedures. In order to synthesise liquid and gas biofuel efficiently, single-atom catalysts (SACs) and single-atom alloys (SAAs) have been used in the reaction to promote it. SACs are made up of single metal atoms that are anchored or confined to a suitable support to keep them stable, while SAAs are materials generated by bi- and multi-metallic complexes, where one of these metals is atomically distributed in such a material. The structure of SACs and SAAs influences their catalytic performance. The challenge to practically using SACs in biofuel production is to design SACs and SAAs that are stable and able to operate efficiently during reaction. Hence, the present study reviews the system and configuration of SACs and SAAs, stabilisation strategies such as mutual metal support interaction and geometric coordination, and the synthesis strategies. This paper aims to provide useful and informative knowledge about the current synthesis strategies of SACs and SAAs for future development in the field of biofuel production.
Highlights
Biofuel is a fuel derived from biomass
This study revealed that a large number of basal sulphur vacancies within Co-doped single-layer MoS2 provided a sufficient number of Co–S–Mo active sites for the hydrodeoxygenation reaction to occur at a low operating temperature
Years have passed since single-atom catalysts (SACs) and single-atom alloys (SAAs) were first introduced, and there has been remarkable progress in the development of strategies to synthesise both SACs and SAAs
Summary
Biofuel is a fuel derived from biomass. Biofuels include bio-char, ethanol, biodiesel, biogas, biohydrogen, and biosynthetic gas fuels [1,2]. By atomically dispersing the isolated single atom or SAAs on the catalyst support, the maximum active sites with the largest surface free energy may be realised, with the surface free energy being substantially higher than the bulk character catalyst (Figure 2A). The individual metal atoms can be observed This is evinced by the aberration-corrected high-angle annular darkfield scanning transmission electron microscopy (AC HAADF-STEM) images from Huang et al (Figure 2C,D). Based on the aforementioned SAC and SAA findings, with 100% of metal dispersion and maximum active metal sites exposure, both of the catalysts will be expected to be very effective for catalysing various types of biofuel reactions such as hydrodeoxygenation, photocatalytic water splitting, water–gas shift (WGS), and dry methane reforming (DRM) for the production of liquid fuel and gas fuel. Adapted with permission from [28]
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