Engineering the structure of oxide cluster-decorated alloy unfolds a new page of catalyst design

The material’s nature defines its performance, especially for catalysts. The structure design is thus primarily important, and recently a new catalyst structure of oxide cluster-decorated alloy (OCDA) has become attractive, which is applied in reactions such as CO oxidation, CO2 hydrogenation, and water–gas shift reaction. Here we mainly introduce the preparation methods of OCDA, including controlled reduction of alloy or alloy-mixed oxide catalysts and the in situ formation method under reaction atmospheres. The structure verification methods, such as operando X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), were also elucidated. The analyses on individual functions of the alloy and decorating oxide clusters, as well as the whole structure, were conducted according to the reaction features. At last, some suggestions and outlook are proposed for the future high-performance catalyst structure design.