Reversible Switching of Catalytic Activity by Shuttling an Atom into and out of Gold Nanoclusters

Xiao Cai; Govindarajan Saranya; Kangqi Shen; Mingyang Chen; Rui Si; Weiping Ding; Yan Zhu

doi:10.1002/anie.201903853

Reversible Switching of Catalytic Activity by Shuttling an Atom into and out of Gold Nanoclusters

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Jul 15;58(29):9964-9968. doi: 10.1002/anie.201903853. Epub 2019 Jun 11.

Authors

Xiao Cai¹, Govindarajan Saranya², Kangqi Shen², Mingyang Chen², Rui Si³, Weiping Ding¹, Yan Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Lab of Mesoscopic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China.
² Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing, 100193, China.
³ Shanghai Radiation Facility, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201204, China.

PMID: 31106477
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201903853

Abstract

It is challenging to control the catalyst activation and deactivation by removal and addition of only one central atom, as it is almost impossible to precisely abstract an atom from a conventional catalyst and analyze its catalysis. Here we report that the loss of one central atom in Au₂₅ (resulting in Au₂₄ ) enhances the catalytic activity in the oxidation of methane compared to the original Au₂₅ . More importantly, the activity can be readily switched through shuttling the central atom into Au₂₄ and out of Au₂₅ . This work will serve as a starting point for design rules on how to control catalytic performance of a catalyst by an atom alteration.

Keywords: cluster catalysis; gold nanoclusters; methane oxidation.

Abstract

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