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A highly efficient and regenerable Ir1–Cu1 dual-atom catalyst for low-temperature alkane dehydrogenation

Nature Catalysis volume 8, pages 436–447 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Alkane dehydrogenation as a direct route to produce olefins receives widespread attention from industry and academia. However, high temperatures (>550 °C) are often needed to break C–H bonds, leading to deleterious side reactions in the alkane dehydrogenation process. Here we reduce the reaction temperature of n-butane dehydrogenation by fabricating a robust and regenerable Ir1–Cu1 dual-atom catalyst. The so-prepared system shows a turnover frequency of 2.45 s−1 at 450 °C, which is 6.3 times higher than the single-atom Ir1/ND@G catalyst, while, at he same time, achieving a high C4 olefin selectivity of 98%. Importantly, key for the success of the Ir1–Cu1 dual-atom catalyst are the sterically favourable geometric configuration and the modulated electronic property, which can lower the reaction barrier for C–H activation, shift the rate-determining step and facilitate the desorption of the product. Thus, a remarkable activity can be achieved for n-butane dehydrogenation at relatively low temperature (≤450 °C).

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Fig. 1: Structural characterizations of the Ir1Cu/ND@G catalyst.
Fig. 2: Catalytic performance and reaction mechanism for BDH.
Fig. 3: Theoretical investigation on Ir1Cu/ND@G and Ir1/ND@G.
Fig. 4: Regeneration experiment and structural evolution of Ir1Cu/ND@G.
Fig. 5: The structural characterization in the aggregation–redispersion mechanism.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. The optimized computational models and MD trajectories are available in the Supplementary Data. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant numbers 2022YFA1504500, 2022YFB4003100 and 2021YFA1502802), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 92145301, U21B2092, 22232001, 21961160722, 91845201 and 22072162), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2024M763338), Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number 172GJHZ2022028MI), Shenyang Young Talents Program (grant number RC210435), Dalian National Lab for Clean Energy (DNL Cooperation Fund 202001) and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (grant number 420043-2). The XAS experiments were conducted in Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF). D.M. acknowledges support from the Tencent Foundation through the XPLORER PRIZE and New Cornerstone Investigator Program. X. Cai acknowledges the support from the NTU Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship (grant number 03INS001828C230).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xiaowen Chen, Maolin Wang, Yurong He.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, P. R. China

    Xiaowen Chen, Jiangyong Diao & Hongyang Liu

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Shenyang, P. R. China

    Xiaowen Chen & Hongyang Liu

  3. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China

    Maolin Wang, Mi Peng & Ding Ma

  4. State Key Laboratory of High-efficiency Coal Utilization and Green Chemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, P. R. China

    Yurong He

  5. Center for Integrative Materials Discovery, Department of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA

    Dequan Xiao

  6. Department of Physics and Center for Quantum Materials, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, P. R. China

    Ning Wang & Xiangbin Cai

  7. Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Xiangbin Cai

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Contributions

H.L. and D.M. conceived the research. X. Chen conducted material synthesis and carried out the catalytic performance test. M.W. conducted the X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopic measurements and analysed the data. Y.H. performed the DFT calculations. X. Cai contributed to the aberration-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy. M.W. and P.M. conducted the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. J.D. performed some of the synthesis experiments. The paper was primarily written by X. Chen, D.X., H.L. and D.M. All authors contributed to discussions and paper review.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiangbin Cai, Hongyang Liu or Ding Ma.

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Nature Catalysis thanks Sonia Bocanegra and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–28, Notes 1–3, Tables 1–24 and References.

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Chen, X., Wang, M., He, Y. et al. A highly efficient and regenerable Ir1–Cu1 dual-atom catalyst for low-temperature alkane dehydrogenation. Nat Catal 8, 436–447 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-025-01328-3

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