Gold Catalysts Supported on Nanostructured Materials: Support Effects.

Although gold in bulk has often been regarded as poorly active as a catalyst, Haruta et al. found in the late 1980s and the early of 1990s that the gold particles deposited on selected metal oxides exhibit surprisingly high catalytic activity for CO oxidation at low temperature.1,2 Now, an extensive body of literature describing the CO oxidation ability of gold nanoparticles supported on various metal oxides, such as TiO2,3-15 Fe2O3,1,16 CO3O4,1 NiO,1 SiO2,17 ZrO2,18,19 and Al2O3,20 has appeared.21-30 The catalytic activities of gold catalysts depend on many factors. Among them, the variation in the properties of support oxides gives rise to much of the variability in supported gold catalysts, for example the effect of isoelectronic point (IEP) upon deposition of gold species or the role of the oxide reducibility in effecting the transfer of oxygen between the support and the gold nanoparticles. The focus of this chapter is the review of our recent research on the synthesis and characterization of tailored nanostructured supports for the assembly of ultrasmall gold nanoparticles for catalysis applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]