【Frontiers in HaiChuan Chemical Technology】East China University of Science and Technology makes significant progress in the regulation of the electronic structure of metal catalysts

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Recently, Professor Duan Xuezhi and Special Researcher Chen Wenyao from the School of Chemical Engineering at East China University of Science and Technology have made significant progress in the field of regulating the electronic structure of metal catalysts. The relevant findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. 　　Gold catalysts exhibit unique advantages in green transformation processes such as the selective oxidation of olefins, owing to their ability to inhibit deep oxidation reactions. However, gold’s limited ability to activate hydrogen and oxygen restricts its intrinsic activity in reactions such as one-step epoxidation of propylene. Although traditional bimetallic alloying strategies can increase the reaction rate, they often lead to the occurrence of side reactions, resulting in the excessive hydrogenation of propylene to produce propane or excessive oxidation to produce carbon dioxide. To address this challenge, the research team developed a novel \"electronic fence\" strategy. By precisely assembling metastable rhodium atomic layers at the gold-molecular sieve interface, they were able to effectively regulate the electronic states of the active sites on gold, thereby enhancing the activity and selectivity of the propylene epoxidation reaction. This approach provides new insights for the design of high-performance selective oxidation catalysts.