Enhanced Proximity of Rh1,2‐Rhn Ensembles Encaged in UiO‐67 Boosting Catalytic Conversion of Syngas to Oxygenates

Abstract

AbstractMaintaining high conversion under the premise of high oxygenates selectivity in syngas conversion is important but a formidable challenge in Rh catalysis. Monometallic Rh catalysts provide poor oxygenate conversion efficiency, and efforts have been focused on constructing adjacent polymetallic sites; however, the one‐pass yields of C2+ oxygenates over the reported Rh‐based catalysts were mostly <20 %. In this study, we constructed a monometallic Rh catalyst encapsulated in UiO‐67 (Rh/UiO‐67) with enhanced proximity to dual‐site Rh1,2‐Rhn ensembles. Unexpectedly, this catalyst exhibited high efficacy for oxygenate synthesis from syngas, giving a high oxygenate selectivity of 72.0 % with a remarkable CO conversion of 50.4 %, and the one‐pass yield of C2+ oxygenates exceeded 25 %. The state‐of‐the‐art characterizations further revealed the spontaneous formation of an ensemble of Rh single atoms/dimers (Rh1,2) in the proximity of ultrasmall Rh clusters (Rhn) confined within the nanocavity of UiO‐67, providing adjacent Rh+‐Rh0 dual sites dynamically during the reaction that promote the relay of the undissociated CHO species to the CHx species. Thus, our results open a new route for designing highly efficient Rh catalysts for the conversion of syngas to oxygenates by precisely tuning the ensemble and proximity of the dual active sites in a confined space.