Platinum (Pt) based catalysts are key materials in the field of thermal catalysis and are widely used in energy conversion and environmental governance. However, in the harsh environment of high-temperature oxidative atmosphere (800 ℃ -1100 oC), Pt based catalysts face three major deactivation challenges: firstly, Pt particles undergo sintering, leading to aggregation of active sites; Secondly, Pt is excessively oxidized, resulting in the formation of low activity Pt ⁴⁺ oxide; The third is the loss of Pt active components under high-speed airflow erosion. In industrial applications, the number of metal active sites after thermal equilibrium is usually maintained by increasing the Pt loading, but this significantly increases the economic cost. Despite recent research reports aimed at addressing the aforementioned issues, there is still a lack of effective strategies that can simultaneously suppress all three deactivation mechanisms, posing significant challenges to the design and development of highly stable catalysts for industrial applications.
With the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Central China Normal University, Professor Yanbing Guo's research group at the Institute of Environmental and Applied Chemistry of Central China Normal University has made significant progress in the study of catalytic elimination mechanisms for end emissions from mobile and fixed sources in recent years. The research group conducted systematic studies on the high-temperature stability, sulfur resistance, and water poisoning resistance of catalysts, providing strong theoretical support and experimental basis for the development of air pollution control technology. （Nat. Commun., 2020, 11, 1062., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2022, 48, e202212273., Environ. Sci. Technol., 2024, 58, 40, 18020–18032., Environ. Sci. Technol. 2024, 58, 18, 8096–8108., Science 2025 388, 514–519.）
Figure 1 Schematic diagram of catalyst structure and propane catalytic oxidation performance
Recently, Professor Guo Yanbing's research group at Central China Normal University successfully designed and prepared a new type of rare earth based integral catalyst, PtSA/CeZrO ₂, in response to the industry problem that industrial Pt based catalysts are prone to deactivation due to Pt sintering, peroxidation, and loss of active components in high-temperature oxidation environments, thereby restricting the lifespan and efficiency of catalytic converters. The catalyst uses atomically dispersed Pt single atoms (PtSA) anchored to ordered macroporous Ce ₀ ₈Zr₀. On the ₂ O ₂ carrier (Figure 1), significant improvements in catalytic performance were achieved at the atomic and nanoscale. At the atomic scale, Zr doping effectively stabilizes the dynamic low coordination PtSA sites (Figure 2), allowing them to retain more free d orbital electrons that are not saturated by Pt-O bonds. This characteristic helps to maintain the activation state of peroxide species (O ₂² ⁻) at high temperatures, thereby significantly promoting the efficient activation of propane C-H bonds. At the nanoscale, ordered macroporous nanostructures effectively suppress the loss of Pt under high temperature conditions, successfully reducing the Pt loading to 0.4 gPt/L, much lower than the 0.9 gPt/L of commercial diesel oxidation catalysts. Thanks to the aforementioned structural advantages, PtSA/CeZrO ₂ still exhibits excellent propane oxidation activity after aging for 50 hours under harsh hydrothermal conditions of 800 ℃ and 10 vol% H ₂ O, with a conversion rate of up to 92% at 450 ℃. The research team also successfully integrated the catalyst into a 3.4L commercial cordierite honeycomb ceramic carrier through template method and atomic capture technology, demonstrating good practical application prospects. This study not only reveals the dynamic structural evolution mechanism of Pt single atomic sites during high-temperature oxidation, but also provides new design strategies and experimental basis for the development of catalytic converters with high stability, low precious metal content, and scalable integration.
Figure 2 Dynamic evolution mechanism of local atomic coordination structure of active site PtSA
This achievement was published in the renowned academic journal Nature Communications (Nature Commun., 2025, 16, 7847) under the title "Ultra stable Low coordinated PtSA/CeZrO2 Ordered Macroscopic Structure Integrated Industrial scale Monolithic Catalysts for High Resistance Oxidation". Professor Guo Yanbing and Associate Professor Luo Zhu are the corresponding authors, and doctoral student Zhang Baojian is the first author of this paper (Figure 3).
Figure 3: First page of the paper
Review | Yanbing Guo
Editor | Wenzhe Deng
Layout Proofreading | Jiawei Li , Huixuan Zhang , Yanling Shen
