Platinum is ubiquitous in the production sectors of chemicals and fuels; however, its scarcity in nature and high price will limit future proliferation of platinum-catalysed reactions. One promising approach to conserve platinum involves understanding the smallest number of platinum atoms needed to catalyse a reaction, then designing catalysts with the minimal platinum ensembles. Here we design and test a new generation of platinum-copper nanoparticle catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of 1,3-butadiene,, an industrially important reaction. Isolated platinum atom geometries enable hydrogen activation and spillover but are incapable of C-C bond scission that leads to loss of selectivity and catalyst deactivation. γ-Alumina-supported single-atom alloy nanoparticle catalysts with <1 platinum atom per 100 copper atoms are found to exhibit high activity and selectivity for butadiene hydrogenation to butenes under mild conditions, demonstrating transferability from the model study to the catalytic reaction under practical conditions.

中文翻译：

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在单原子极限下，铂-铜合金上的1,3-丁二烯选择性氢化。

铂在化学和燃料的生产领域无处不在。然而，由于其本质上的稀缺性和高昂的价格，将限制铂催化反应的未来扩散。保存铂的一种有前途的方法涉及了解催化反应所需的最少铂原子数，然后设计具有最小铂团数的催化剂。在这里，我们设计并测试了用于工业上重要反应的1,3-丁二烯选择性加氢的新一代铂-铜纳米颗粒催化剂。孤立的铂原子几何形状能够实现氢活化和溢出，但无法进行CC键断裂，从而导致选择性和催化剂失活。γ-氧化铝负载的单原子合金纳米颗粒催化剂，<