Zhang Tao

As the invisible engines of modern chemistry, catalysts help produce the gasoline that powers cars, the fertilizers that promote food cultivation and the polymers used to make clothing, making them indispensable to modern life.

For more than a century, however, the chemical industry has faced a costly obstacle. Its most effective catalysts rely on rare and expensive precious metals such as platinum and palladium, which are even more valuable than gold. In conventional industrial processes, these metals are used in the form of nanoparticles or clusters, leaving a large percent of the metal atoms buried inside the material and unable to take part in chemical reactions. As a result, most of the precious metal is wasted.

After decades of research, Zhang Tao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team proposed the concept of Single-Atom Catalysis in 2011. Instead of using groups of metal atoms, the approach spreads individual metal atoms across the surface of a supporting material, allowing each atom to act as an active site where chemical reactions take place.

This increases the use of precious metal atoms from only a few percent to nearly 100 percent.

The breakthrough was first demonstrated using platinum-group metals and has since been extended to more than 40 elements in the periodic table. In recognition of its fundamental contribution to catalysis research, the work received the first prize of the State Natural Science Award in Beijing on Wednesday.

"The defining feature of Single-Atom Catalysis is that it allows us to study catalytic reactions at the level of individual atoms rather than larger particles," said Zhang, who is also a professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the CAS.

"Through theoretical studies, we have explained why Single-Atom Catalysis remains stable and how they behave during chemical reactions," said Li Jun, a team member who is also a CAS academician and a professor at Tsinghua University.

"This has changed catalyst research from relying largely on trial and error to designing catalysts based on scientific understanding," Li added.

Zhang said the new understanding has broad applications and has sparked worldwide interest in turning the concept into practical technologies, ranging from pharmaceutical manufacturing to the production of fine chemicals. Thousands of research groups from nearly 100 countries and regions have published more than 20,000 academic papers on the subject.

"This is not merely an academic pursuit, but a strategic response to national needs," Zhang said. "Securing independent control over core catalyst technologies is vital for our energy security and chemical industry."

Behind the achievement lies a decades-long journey from theory to practical application.

When Zhang first proposed the concept in his doctoral dissertation in the 1980s, the technology needed to verify it did not exist.

"In the beginning, we had the idea but no way to observe it," Zhang said. "It felt as if an elephant stood right in front of you, yet in the pitch-black darkness, without a flashlight and with the path choked by weeds, it remained invisible."

The technical limitations of the time made the work that much harder. The domestically produced chromatograph used by the team was basic and plagued by severe signal fluctuations, while power outages were common.

"Often, just as you were about to collect the final data, the power would flicker, erasing an entire day's work," Zhang said. He often spent days in the laboratory, sleeping on a straw mat on the floor while waiting for the equipment to produce stable data.

Zhang said his determination was shaped in part by his early experiences in the mountains. Born in 1963 in Ankang, in the Qinba Mountains of Shaanxi province, he returned to his hometown to teach at a high school after graduation. Driven by a strong passion for scientific research, he later decided to pursue graduate studies.

"I taught during the day and prepared for my master's entrance examinations by lamplight at night, wrapped in a thick cotton-padded coat and felt boots to keep warm during the winter," he said. The experience taught him self-discipline, independence and perseverance, qualities that later helped him overcome repeated setbacks in research.

He also emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Zhang led the development and testing of the catalysts, connecting theoretical research with practical applications, while Li, a theoretical chemist, developed the scientific framework explaining why single atoms remain stable and how they drive chemical reactions.

"With advances in artificial intelligence and computer simulation, we are now using our understanding of these active sites to design and identify better catalysts more efficiently," Zhang said. "The combination of fundamental research and new technologies is expected to support the development of new energy and greener chemical manufacturing worldwide."

责编：冯宇轩

一审：冯宇轩

二审：秦慧英

三审：张权

来源：中国日报双语新闻·网站