Catalysis using gold nanoparticles supported on oxides has been under extensive investigation for many important application processes. However, how to tune the charge state of a given Au species to perform a specific chemical reaction, e.g. CO oxidation, remains elusive. Here, using first-principles calculations, we show clearly that an intrinsically inert Au anion deposited on oxygen-deficient TiO 2 (110) (Au@TiO 2 (110)) can be tuned and optimized into a highly effective single atom catalyst (SAC), due to the depletion of the d-orbital by substrate doping. Particularly, Ni-and Cu-doped Au@TiO 2 complexes undergo a reconstruction driven by one of the two dissociated O atoms upon CO oxidation. The remaining O atom heals the surface oxygen vacancy and results in a stable bow-shaped surface "O-Au-O" species; thereby the highly oxidized Au single atom now exhibits magnetism and dramatically enhanced activity and stability for O 2 activation and CO oxidation, due to the emergence of high density of states near the Fermi level. Based on further extensive calculations, we establish the "charge selection rule" for O 2 activation and CO oxidation on Au: the positively charged Au SAC is more active than its negatively charged counterpart for O 2 activation, and the more positively charged the Au, the more active it is.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are of great scientific and technical importance due to their low cost, high site density, and high specificity to enhance chemical reactions. Nevertheless, a major issue that severely limits the practical exploration of SACs is their instability, i.e., the preference of sintering and clustering over a defect-free substrate during operation. Here, we employ first-principles calculations to investigate how substrate engineering can stabilize SACs by strain-tuning the electronic interactions between the metal and the substrate using two Pd adatoms on a defect-free, single-layer MoS2 as a typical example. It is identified that the Pd2 dimer is prone to dissociate and form highly efficient SACs for CO oxidation due to the enhanced charge transfer and orbital hybridization with the MoS2 substrate under a suitable tensile strain. The straining induces a semiconductive-to-metallic phase transition of the substrate. Moreover, low-cost elements, such as Ag, Ni, Cu, and Cr, can also be stabilized into high-performance SACs for CO oxidation with tunable reaction barriers by straining. The present findings offer a new avenue to inhibit the transition metal atoms from clustering into nanoclusters/particles and provide a clear guidance for the development of highly cost-efficient and stable SACs on defect-free substrates.

First-principles calculations have been performed on the electronic structures for Ru n ͑n =2-14͒ clusters. The calculations show that square represents the basic unit in the growth of Ru n clusters. For the stability, odd-even oscillation with respect to the cluster size is observed. Correspondingly, those clusters comprising integer number of square units are magic clusters with high stability. Simple cubic growth mode is detected with cluster size increasing, in line with latest publication. However, for some clusters, such as Ru 13 , more stable structures different from previous calculated results have been found. The calculated magnetic moment for the ground state of Ru 13 ͑0.15 B /atom͒ agrees better with experimental observation ͑Ͻ0.29 B /atom͒ than those obtained before. The current optimized new structure is also found to be favored for some other 13-atom 4d transition metal clusters, such as Tc 13 . Our findings may thoroughly resolve a long standing discrepancy between theories and experiments and contribute basic data for design of novel catalysts.