Gold Innovations Blog

This weeks edition of Science carries a nice paper entitled Electronic Structure Controls Reactivity of Size-Selected Pd Clusters Adsorbed on TiO₂ Surfaces. What the authors, based at the University of Utah, have demonstrated is the first conclusive link between the size of catalyst particles on a solid surface, their electronic properties and their ability to speed up chemical reactions.

This is an important paper indeed. Take gold as an example – it’s pretty expensive stuff, as are all of the noble metals employed as catalysts. If, say, 50% of a precious metal catalyst is in fact inactive/poorly active because the particles are not of an optimal size then that adds up to a lot of wasted gold. A better understanding of the link between particle size and activity will undoubtedly make for more efficient (both chemically and economically!) catalysts