Themed collection Designing Nanoparticle Systems for Catalysis

An overview of the Faraday Discussion, “Designing Nanoparticle Systems for Catalysis”, is presented.

Molecular metal complexes on supports have drawn wide attention as catalysts offering new properties and opportunities for precise synthesis to make uniform catalytic species that can be understood in depth.

LaCoO₃ nanoparticles are active in CO and propane oxidation when adsorbed on AlOOH.

Hollow bimetallic nanoparticles exhibit unique surface plasmonic properties, enhanced catalytic activities and high photo-thermal conversion efficiencies amongst other properties, however, their research and further deployment are currently limited by their complicated multi-step syntheses.

In this work, a variation in heat treatment atmosphere approach is taken to provide a series of related PtSn catalysts with the same nominal composition of Pt₃Sn, but with different surface compositions.

Operando GISAXS/GIXD studies revealed that supported Au nanoparticles on a flat SiO₂/Si(111) support undergo shape and phase transformations during CO oxidation.

A series of 1 wt% supported Au, Pd and AuPd nanoalloy catalysts were prepared via microwave assisted reduction of PdCl₂ and HAuCl₄ in a facile, one pot process.

Nanoparticle property control, and excellent catalytic capabilities, has been demonstrated using Pd/TiO₂ prepared by sol-immobilisation with solvent and temperature control.

We demonstrate that shadow nanosphere lithography (SNL) is an auspicious tool to systematically create three-dimensional electrocatalyst nanostructures on the semiconductor photoelectrode through controlling their morphology and optical properties.

Bimetallic gold based catalysts have been prepared using a sol immobilisation technique. Depending on the second metal different structure have been obtained.

We have used spin polarized density functional theory (DFT) to evaluate the geometrical resilience of Ni clusters on ZrO₂(111) and YSZ(111).

An attapulgite-supported Cu(II)Cl₂ catalyst has been studied with XANES and DFT approaches to follow the chlorination reaction of CO to phosgene.

The influence of hydroxyl and carbonyl groups on the deposition of gold from solution onto graphite surfaces was explored: OH gives Au⁰ whereas CO results in Au³⁺.

We use density functional theory with Hubbard corrections (DFT+U) to understand the local electronic properties of Au adatom and Au₂ dimer adsorption on the CeO₂ (110) surface with and without O-defects.

Transformation of the surface structure of HOPG-supported bimetallic Pd–Au particles in the course of CO oxidation has been demonstrated using NAP XPS and MS techniques.

The focus of this study lies in the activation of molecular oxygen and reaction with CO within density functional theory (DFT) and high level CCSD(T) calculations.

Formation of Pd nanoparticles inside UiO-67 MOF was monitored by in situ X-ray absorption and diffraction.

DFT calculations on free and TiO₂-supported Pd–Ir and Au–Rh nanoalloys reveal that Janus and core–shell configurations compete on oxide supports.

Electron–phonon coupling times, equilibrium structures and surface segregation as a function of hollow core–shell AgAu nanoparticle composition.

New insights and successful use of computational catalysis is highlighted.

We present a comprehensive study of a 5 wt% Pd/C catalyst in various environments by using in situ and operando X-ray absorption and diffraction.

Atomic arrangements in oxide surfaces can be uncovered by combining side view imaging using transmission electron microscopy and top view imaging using scanning tunnelling microscopy.

We looked at the active hydrogen species in a highly dispersed and very homogeneous 5 wt% Pt/C industrial catalyst (Pt particle mean diameter of 2.0 ± 0.5 nm) for hydrogenation reactions, by coupling H₂ adsorption measurements with Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS).

DFT calculations are used to simultaneously explore the effects of nanoparticle size and coverage for O adsorption on Pt nanoparticles.

The mutual interaction between Rh nanoparticles and manganese/iron oxide promoters in silica-supported Rh catalysts for the hydrogenation of CO to higher alcohols was analyzed by applying a combination of spectroscopy and microscopy.

We discuss in this paper two case studies related to nano-particle catalyst systems: one concerns a model system for the Cr/SiO₂ Phillips catalyst for ethylene polymerization and the other provides additional information on Au nano-particles supported on ultrathin MgO(100)/Ag(100) films.