Themed collection Nanocatalysis

Editorial for the themed issue on nanocatalysis.

2 nm PdIn intermetallic alloy (cubic, CsCl type) nanoparticle catalyst was near 100% selective to ethane dehydrogenation at 600 °C (at 15% conversion) with a dehydrogenation TOR almost 10 times higher than that of monometallic Pd.

In size-controlled naked Cu₅ and Cu₂₀ nanoclusters the latter show anodic redox processes occurring at much lower potential with respect to Cu₅, but the latter coordinate effectively CO₂ and allow to reduce CO₂ under cathodic conditions at lower overpotential.

Adding P to NiO leads to a decrease of ethane conversion with an increase in ODH selectivity.

APXPS was used to investigate the effect of oxygen adsorption on the band bending and electron affinity of ALD Al₂O₃, ZnO and TiO₂ ultrathin films.

The first reported synthesis of Au–Pd/Mo₂C from colloidal nanoparticles with enhanced selective catalytic hydrogenation of functionalised nitroarenes.

Catalytic CO oxidation driven by uni-sized Pt₃₀ bound to a Si substrate, at the interface of which electrons are accumulated. The low-temperature and anti-CO-poisoning performance has been evidenced with continuous and simultaneous supply of CO and O₂.

Density functional theory calculations are performed to investigate both mixing and adsorption properties of 38-atom and 79-atom Au–Rh nanoalloys at the nanoscale.

Structural analysis of deposited nanoclusters using extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy.

Mechanism of OH_ads/Pt₃₈ diffusion via transient hydronium species in first-principles molecular dynamics simulations.

The single-atom catalyst Ni₁/FeO_x has a high activity for CO oxidation and the oxygen vacancy on the surface of this catalyst can be created at room temperature.

Hydrogen dissociation on mono-disperse platinum clusters is found to increase with minute amounts of oxygen in the gas stream.

Monodisperse faceted icosahedral Au–Pd core–shell nanocrystals of small size (<12 nm) supported on Vulcan XC-72 (Au–Pd/C) are employed in electroreforming for the cogeneration of hydrogen and valuable chemicals.

We demonstrated the capability of combined EXAFS and DFT calculations for characterizing the structural and thermal properties of Au₁₄₇ clusters.

Density functional theory calculations reveal the complete pathways of oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane to form ethene on the Co₃O₄(111) surface and the rate-determining step.

Au catalysts with the same particle sizes demonstrate the following order of activity in formic acid decomposition: Au/Al₂O₃ > Au/ZrO₂ ∼ Au/CeO₂ > Au/La₂O₃ > Au/MgO.

We investigated the “one-batch” synthesis of model and practical palladium catalysts using atomic layer deposition (ALD).

We have investigated a series of Pt–TiO₂ and Pt–CeO₂ catalysts for crotonaldehyde hydrogenation with the goal of better understanding the kinetics of CO bond hydrogenation.

Photocatalytic water splitting has the potential to provide a sustainable approach for storing the energy of solar photons in the form of chemical bonds.

CO and NO react on hydrogen-covered 13-atom Pt clusters, O₂ does not, and the hydrogenation of ethene shows structure sensitivity.

Surface oxygen sites on CeO₂ nanostructures are able to bind atoms of various transition metals strong enough to prevent their sintering. This finding opens a knowledge-driven way to prepare stable single-atom catalysts with maximum metal efficiency.

Cu clusters supported on β-Mo₂C improve the selectivity towards methanol decreasing the amount of methane.

The loss of activity observed when Au/ZnO was activated under H₂ was explained by the formation of AuZn alloy.

Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we address the adsorption of O₂ and the coadsorption of gold species and oxygen molecules on a Mo-doped CaO(001) surface with 1.25% impurity concentration.