Solution chemistry toolkit for the design of multi-metal nanoparticle catalysts

Over the past few years, we have been developing synthetic strategies that yield nanoparticles of intermetallic compounds, which are multi-metal alloys with fixed compositions and crystal structures that can differ quite dramatically from their elemental constituents. The result of this work is a toolbox of reactions that rationally yields a large number of binary and ternary intermetallic nanoparticles, including Pt, Pd, and Au systems that are important for a variety of catalytic applications. Furthermore, we can access shape-controlled intermetallic nanoparticles that selectively expose a variety of different crystal faces, which provides direct access to model systems for studying the influence of atomic structure on high surface area "real-world" catalysts. This talk will focus on applying our "metallurgical toolbox" to the development of supported intermetallic catalysts, with particular emphasis on CO oxidation.