Noble Metal Single‐Atom Catalysts for the Catalytic Oxidation of Volatile Organic Compounds

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are detrimental to the environment and human health and must be eliminated before discharging. Catalytic oxidation via heterogeneous catalysts is one of the most promising approaches for the VOCs abatement. Precious metal catalysts are highly active for the catalytic oxidation of VOCs, but they are rare, and their high price limits the large-scale applications. Supported metal single -atom catalysts (SACs) have a high atom efficiency and provide the possibility to break up such limitation. This minireview summarizes the recent progress on using metal SACs for the complete oxidation of VOCs, such as benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, methanol, aliphatic, Cl- and S- containing hydrocarbons. The structures of the metal SACs used and the reaction mechanisms are discussed in the VOC oxidation. It is found that the widely used SACs are noble metals supported on oxides, especially on reducible oxides, such as Mn 2 O 3 and TiO 2 . The reactivity of most SACs is related to the activity of the surface lattice oxygen of the oxides. Furthermore, several metal SACs show better reactivity and improved S- and Cl-resistance than the counterpart nanocatalysts, indicating that SACs have the potential application in the oxidation of VOCs. The deactiva tion and regeneration mechanisms of the metal SACs are also summarized. It is concluded that the application of metal SACs in catalytic oxidation of VOCs is still in its infancy. This contribution aims to build the structure-performance relationship and to guide the designing of highly efficient metal SACs for the catalytic oxidation of VOCs.