The Synergetic Catalysts of Metal Single‐Atoms Coupled with Nanoparticles: Structures, Function Mechanisms and Applications

The synergetic catalysts of nanoparticles (NPs) and single-atoms (SAs) have shown outstanding advances in many applications due to the coupling function of two different types of active sites, which benefit for the adsorption/activation of reactants or intermediates. This review systematically summarizes recent research progress on SA and NP synergetic catalysis. The synergetic structures and function mechanisms are first briefly provided. The synergetic structures are divided into discrete SA and NP, heterogeneous SAs decorated on NP and interfacial homogeneous SA ions under NP. This work classifies paralleling, tandem and reinforcing three types according to the function mechanisms, the corresponding catalytic applications are then analyzed and discussed. Specially, for the mostly applied paralleling category, their applications in electro/thermo/photocatalysis are detailedly introduced. Finally, some suggestions are proposed for the design of highly efficient coupled catalysts and future research directions of advanced synergetic catalysis are addressed.