Catalytic Chemistry of Nanostructured Materials

Nanostructured materials have revolutionised heterogeneous catalysis by offering exceptionally high surface areas and unique atomic arrangements that yield enhanced reactivity and selectivity. At the nanoscale, control over particle size, shape and composition enables precise tuning of active sites, while supports and surface modifications further modulate electronic properties. These materials facilitate critical processes including carbon dioxide conversion, hydrocarbon oxidation and nitrogen oxide reduction by stabilising reaction intermediates at under-coordinated or specially engineered sites. Advances in synthetic protocols now allow the fabrication of bimetallic clusters, metal-oxide spinels and tailored facets, while in situ spectroscopy and microscopy deliver real-time insight into dynamic surface reconstructions under realistic conditions. The resulting improvements in energy efficiency and environmental impact underscore the global significance of this field, which continues to bridge fundamental science and practical applications in energy storage, chemical synthesis and pollution abatement.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have revealed how vicinal copper facets orchestrate carbon dioxide activation, demonstrating that step-broken Cu nanoclusters promote CO2 dissociation to carbon monoxide and atomic oxygen at ambient pressure. In situ tunnelling microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy have traced reversible cluster reorganisation and irreversible faceting, offering design principles for efficient CO2 electroreduction catalysts. Work on isolated bimetallic sites has shown that single Rh–Co ensembles on oxide supports enable low-temperature nitric oxide reduction via a two-molecule adsorption pathway, resulting in high selectivity towards dinitrogen. Investigations of nickel–cobalt spinel oxides have elucidated the atomic-scale synergy of transition metal cations and lattice oxygen, explaining why earth-abundant NiCo2O4 catalysts outperform precious metals in methane oxidation at moderate temperatures through sequential dehydrogenation and oxidative coupling steps.

Catalytic Chemistry of Nanostructured Materials publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in catalytic chemistry of nanostructured materials across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Nanostructured material: A solid whose structural features are controlled at the nanometre scale to yield unique physicochemical properties.

Active site: The specific atomic configuration on a catalyst surface where substrate molecules adsorb and undergo chemical transformation.

Vicinal plane: A crystal facet slightly misoriented from a high-symmetry surface, creating step and terrace structures that influence adsorption and reaction pathways.

Adsorbate: A reactant or intermediate species that is bound to a surface site during a catalytic process.

In situ spectroscopy: Analytical techniques performed under working conditions that monitor catalyst structure, composition or electronic state in real time.

Bimetallic site: A catalytic ensemble comprising two different metal atoms in close proximity, offering synergistic electronic and geometric effects for enhanced reactivity.

References

1. Revealing CO2 dissociation pathways at vicinal copper (997) interfaces. Nature Communications (2023).
2. Catalysis on singly dispersed bimetallic sites. Nature Communications (2015).
3. Understanding complete oxidation of methane on spinel oxides at a molecular level. Nature Communications (2015).
4. High-Pressure Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. Chemical Reviews (2020).
5. CO organization at ambient pressure on stepped Pt surfaces: first principles modeling accelerated by neural networks. Chemical Science (2021).
6. Atmosphere-Induced Transient Structural Transformations of Pd–Cu and Pt–Cu Alloy Nanocrystals. Chemistry of Materials (2021).