Understanding interaction between active sites in heterogeneous catalysis is a grand challenge, owing to difficulty in extracting information from different active sites. We report a solution to this problem by showing that electron conduction can facilitate direct interplay of distant active sites. By fabricating two single-atom site catalysts (manganese dioxide-encapsulated metallic silver atomic wires) with one or two ending silver atoms of each wire exposed on surfaces, we find that only the catalyst with both ending silver atoms exposed can trigger low-temperature carbon monoxide oxidation, which provides unequivocal evidence that interaction between active sites is possible upon eligible electron conducting. This result indicates that the interaction between active sites might be universally present in catalysis reactions when there is effective communication between the active sites.

由于难以从不同的活性位点提取信息，因此了解多相催化中活性位点之间的相互作用是一个巨大的挑战。我们通过表明电子传导可以促进远距离活性位点的直接相互作用来报告这个问题的解决方案。通过制造两个单原子位点催化剂（二氧化锰包封的金属银原子线），每根线的一个或两个末端银原子暴露在表面上，我们发现只有两个末端银原子都暴露的催化剂才能触发低温碳一氧化碳氧化，这提供了明确的证据表明，在合格的电子传导条件下，活性位点之间的相互作用是可能的。