Catalytic Application of Atomically Precise Metal Nanoclusters as Heterogeneous Catalysts in Industrially Important Chemical Reactions

Metal catalysts are one type of the most important catalysts for the majority of current chemical processes. The emergence of atomically precise metal nanoclusters has brought site-specific catalysis of the nanocatalysts into bloom, which has constituted one of the most exciting topics. On the basis of their atomic structures, these nanoclusters allow for identification of the nature of catalysts. These nanoclusters have exhibited unexpected catalytic properties for a series of industrially important catalytic reactions. Metal nanoparticles as heterogeneous catalysts are widely applied in industrial chemical reactions, such as the conversion of fossil, the conversion of biomass, fuel generation, environmental catalysis and electrocatalysis, and so on. By solving the atomic structure of nanoparticles, one will be able to precisely correlate the catalytic properties with the exact atomic structure of nanoparticles and learn what control the surface activation, surface active site structure, and catalytic mechanism.