Alumni
wxiong@email.sc.edu

Many catalytic reactions have shown a strong correlation between performance and metal particle size, making the synthesis of materials with tight size distributions and targeted diameters an attractive field. Using rational catalyst techniques including Strong Electrostatic Adsorption (SEA) and Electroless Deposition (ED) it is desired to understand the mechanisms for structure-sensitive reactions. SEA can create nanoparticles with narrow size distributions and spatial separations, where ED is used to place a second metal directly, and only, on the base metal. Using a variety of characterization techniques and probe reactions our goal is to understand how particle size and distribution affects particle growth and stability under commercial reaction conditions.