As an essential component of single-atom catalysts, support materials determine the dispersion, utilization, and stability of single metal atoms. Here, we reported the potential of defective and doped graphene as a single-atom catalyst (SAC) support for CO 2 conversion to formic acid by hydrogenation. The support effect was screened based on the stability of a single-metal atom. Our calculation revealed that Cu, Pd, and Ru supported on defective graphene with monovacancy (m-VacG) have higher adsorption energy than the cohesive energy of their bulk counterparts; therefore we selected Cu, Pd, and Ru supported on m-VacG as potential SACs to examine the catalytic reaction. The stability and reactivity of SACs/ m-VacG were uncovered by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, migration barrier calculation, and electronic structure analysis. The reaction of CO 2 hydrogenation proceeds through two pathways starting from different initial states, i.e., the coadsorption of H 2 and CO 2 on SACs/m-VacG (path A) and H 2 adsorption on SACs/m-VacG (path B). From the reaction pathways analysis, it is found that path B dominates the entire reaction thermodynamically with lower energy barrier compared with path A. Moreover, Pd supported on m-VacG is predicted to be the highest active SAC with the lowest energy barrier along the reaction path.
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