Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

Advances in the catalysis of Au nanoparticles

Masatake Haruta a, , Masakazu Dat b
a

Research Institute for Green Technology, Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 16-1 Onogawa, Tsukuba 305-8569, Japan
b Special Division of Green Life Technology, Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology,
1-8-31 Midorigaoka, Ikeda 563-8577, Japan

Abstract
Gold catalysts have recently been attracting rapidly growing interests due to their potential applicabilities to many reactions
of both industrial and environmental importance. This article reviews the latest advances in the catalysis research on Au.
For low-temperature CO oxidation mechanistic arguments are summarized, focusing on Au/TiO2 together with the effect
of preparation conditions and pretreatments. The quantum size effect is also discussed in the adsorption and reaction of
CO over Au clusters smaller than 2 nm in diameter. In addition, recent developments are introduced in the epoxidation of
propylene, water-gas-shift reaction, hydrogenation of unsaturated hydrocarbons, and liquid-phase selective oxidation. The
role of perimeter interface between Au particles and the support is emphasized as a unique reaction site for the reactants
adsorbed separately, one on Au and another on the support surfaces. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Gold catalysts; CO oxidation; Propylene epoxidation; Water-gas-shift reaction; Hydrogenation; Liquid-phase oxidation

1. Introduction
Gold has long been regarded as a poorly active catalyst. A recent theoretical calculation has explained
why the smooth surface of Au is noble in the dissociative adsorption of hydrogen [1]. However, when Au is
deposited as nanoparticles on metal oxides by means
of co-precipitation and depositionprecipitation techniques, it exhibits surprisingly high catalytic activity
for CO oxidation at a temperature as low as 200 K
[2,3]. This finding has motivated many scientists and
engineers to investigate the catalysis of Au in 1990s.
The recent reversal of the market prices of Au (US$
9/g) with respect to Pd (US$ 14/g) and Pt (US$ 14/g)
can drive Au catalysts to commercialization with an
economical advantage.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +81-298-61-8240;
fax:+81-298-61-8240.
E-mail address: m.haruta@aist.go.jp (M. Haruta).

Fig. 1 shows that the annual numbers of research

articles related to the catalyses of Au appreciably
increased in the last decade, especially very rapidly
from 1997. A citation database service, The Web of
Science, provided by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, http://www.isinet.com/isi), was used for
search through the key words of gold, catalysis,
catalyst(s), catalytic(al), catalytically and conjugations of the verb catalyze and catalyse. For
an extended search, derivatives of electrocatalysis,
photocatalysis and autocatalysis were also added.
The articles that contain at least one of these words in
the title, abstract and key word lists are automatically
counted in the numbers, which therefore include a
few articles that are not really concerned with the
catalysis of Au.
Since previous review articles have covered scientific work until 1999 [410], this paper has focused on the advances in the catalysis research of
Au since then. A specific emphasis is put on the

0926-860X/01/$ see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 6 - 8 6 0 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 8 4 7 - X

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M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

Fig. 1. The numbers of articles concerning gold catalysts in the

last decade. Dashed and solid lines denote the basic and extended
search, respectively (see text).

effect of the size of Au particles on the catalytic

performance.

2. CO oxidation
The oxidation of CO is a typical reaction for which
Au catalysts are extraordinarily active at room temperature and much more active than the other noble
metals catalysts at temperatures below 400 K. For this
reaction most intensively studied is Au supported on
TiO2 . This is because neither Au nor TiO2 alone is
active for CO oxidation but their combination generates surprisingly high catalytic activity. One of the
focuses of recent work is the mechanism for CO oxidation [7,9,10]. The following are a summary of the
answers, given to the major questions, which we think
are critical to the mechanism.

Fig. 2. Turn over frequencies and band-gap measured by STM as

a function of the diameter of Au islands deposited on TiO2 [14].

Au islands of 3.5 nm (3 atoms thick) where Au partially loses its metallic nature. They have suggested
that this transition might be correlated to the high catalytic activity. Since the sample used for catalytic activity measurements was composed of the Au islands
with a certain size distribution, whereas the band-gap
was measured for a specific Au island by scanning
tunnel spectroscopy, a more reasonable interpretation
is that the ratio of the number of surface atoms of Au
flat islands having metallic nature to the number of Au
atoms at the periphery with the TiO2 support reaches
an optimum at a mean diameter of 3.5 nm. Since the
adsorption of CO on oxidic Au sites is inhibited by
moisture because of the stronger adsorption of H2 O
molecule [15], activity enhancement strongly suggests
that metallic Au particles are indispensable for the adsorption of CO.

2.1. Active state of Au

Active catalysts always contain metallic Au particles which give CO absorption band at 2112 cm1 ,
while oxidic Au species which give CO absorption
band at 2151 cm1 are not responsible for steady-state
high catalytic activity [11,12]. However, smooth surfaces of metallic Au do not adsorb CO at room temperature [12], indicating that CO is adsorbed only on
steps, edges, and corner sites. Thus, smaller metallic
Au particles are preferable [13].
Goodman and coworkers have reported an inspiring result obtained by using a model Au/TiO2 catalyst
[14]. As shown in Fig. 2, turn over frequency (TOF)
for CO oxidation reaches a maximum at a diameter of

2.2. Stronger contact of Au particles with

the TiO2 support
This is also indispensable for the extraordinarily
high catalytic activity because the periphery sites are
assumed to act as the sites for the reaction of CO adsorbed on Au and oxygen adsorbed on the support.
Baiker and coworkers prepared Au/TiO2 and Au/ZrO2
by immobilizing Au colloids of about 2 nm size on
TiO2 and ZrO2 and indicated that strong interfacial
contact between Au and the oxides was not necessary
[16,17]. Nevertheless, their observation of the activity
enhancement by heating the catalyst samples in reactant stream at 423 K or calcination in Ar at 673 K

M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

429

indicates the contribution of the strong contact. Later,

they reported that Au/TiO2 interface was important for
oxygen activation [18].
Our experiments, using a mechanical mixture of
Au colloids of about 5 nm with TiO2 powder, clearly
showed that higher calcination temperature gives
higher catalytic activity, although Au particles grew
to larger particles [19]. While larger number of steps,
edges, corners in smaller Au particles increases the
catalytic activity for CO oxidation, contact with the
support contributes to an additional increase in activity at least by one order of magnitude [20]. An
atomic-level model for oxygen activation at the periphery by the redox cycle between Au3+ (more likely
Au+ ) and Au0 is proposed by Bond and Thompson [9].
Fig. 3. Arrhenius plots for CO oxidation over Au/TiO2 catalyst.

2.3. Oxygen activation

No direct experimental evidence has yet been presented whether oxygen molecule is dissociatively
or non-dissociatively adsorbed and on which site of
supported Au catalysts it is adsorbed. However, the
number of articles which indicate the adsorption in
a molecular form on the metal oxide supports is increasing [7,2024]. Until now, the most convincing
evidences for molecularly adsorbed oxygen have been
obtained by a temporal analysis of products (TAP)
study of O2 adsorption [22,23] and by 18 O2 isotope
experiments [2123].
The O2 species was detected by means of ESR
when oxygen gas was introduced at room temperature after evacuating Au/TiO2 at 673 K [21] or when
CO + O2 mixture was introduced to Au/TiO2 [24].
There still remains an important argument, whether
the dissociation of molecularly adsorbed oxygen takes
place before reacting with CO adsorbed on the Au surfaces or the dissociation takes place through reaction.
In the latter case, the formation of carbonate intermediate can be excluded because no 18 O scrambling to
produce C18 O2 takes place (C16 O + 18 O2 + e
C18 O2 +16 O2 ).

Fig. 3 shows that there are three temperature regions

where different kinetics are operating with markedly
different rates and apparent activation energies. The
probable pathways for CO oxidation are schematically
shown in Scheme 1.
At temperatures below 200 K, the TiO2 surfaces
and its perimeter interfaces around Au particles are
covered with carbonate species. Reaction of CO with
O2 takes place only on the surfaces of Au, more

2.4. Reaction pathways

We have presented a comprehensive reaction mechanism which can explain the whole catalytic behavior
of Au/TiO2 catalysts over a wide range of temperature from 90 to 400 K [25]. The Arrhenius plots in

Scheme 1. Reaction pathways for CO oxidation over Au/TiO2

catalyst.

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M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

specifically, on the step, edge, and corner sites with

almost 0 kJ/mol for apparent activation energy. This
means when Au particles are small enough the catalytic activity can be detected at any temperature.
Actually unsupported Au powder (30 nm in diameter)
exhibits measurable activity for CO oxidation at 200 K
with apparent activation energy of nearly zero [20].
At temperatures above 300 K, reaction takes place at
the perimeter interfaces between CO adsorbed on the
surfaces of Au particles and molecular oxygen adsorbed at the support surface. This reaction also gives
nearly zero apparent activation energy but proceeds
much faster by more than one order of magnitude than
the reaction over the Au surfaces. At the intermediate
temperature from 200 to 300 K, the reaction proceeds
at the perimeter interface which is partly covered with
carbonate species. The coverage of the species may
change depending on temperature, thus giving rise to
apparent activation energy around 30 kJ/mol.
In addition to the above arguments, a few other interesting features of Au/TiO2 catalysts are reported
by using model catalysts [10,26,27] and by high resolution transmission electron microscopy [10,2830].
Fig. 4 shows a typical epitaxy structure at the Au and
the support contact [29]. More Au particles are seen at
the valley between the TiO2 particles when calcined
at higher temperatures.
The adsorption of CO on Au surfaces is one of
the important steps in CO oxidation. Boccuzzi et al.
have found that an Au/TiO2 catalyst prepared by
depositionprecipitation contains three different Au
sites for CO adsorption depending on the pretreatment
conditions [15]. CO adsorbed linearly on metallic Au
sites (21102120 cm1 ) after normal calcination in
air, CO adsorbed on oxidic Au species (2176 cm1 )
which appear only after being highly dehydrated and
oxidized, CO adsorbed linearly and bridge-bonded
on small Au clusters (20501900 cm1 ) perturbed by
the negative charge produced in support reduction by
H2 . An adsorption study of CO and O2 over Au/TiO2
by using fixed bed flow reactor equipped with a mass
spectroscopy has shown that CO and O2 adsorption
takes place instantaneously and that CO2 formation
increases until the oxygen adsorption on the reduced
sites of perimeter reaches saturation [31]. Moreover,
moisture also enhances the oxidation of CO over
Au/TiO2. The catalytic activity is much lower under the dry condition (0.1 ppm H2 O) than under the

Fig. 4. (a) Transmission electron micrograph for Au/TiO2 contact

interface and (b) its schematic diagram.

ordinary experimental condition (about 3 ppm H2 O)

[32].
The fundamental aspects of Au catalysis have also
been studied by using single crystal of Au and model
catalysts. The adsorption of CO on Au(1 1 1) was investigated by means of surface X-ray diffraction in a
wide range of pressure from ultrahigh vacuum to 2 bar,
showing that modification of surface structure occurs
at pressures above 1 mbar of CO [33]. As a result of
study of the size-selected Au anion clusters, appreciable size dependency of CO adsorption was observed:
the highest reactivity to CO was observed for the anion clusters of 11 atoms [34]. As shown in Fig. 5, it
was found that 8 and 11 are the smallest and the second smallest to exhibit the catalytic activity over the
MgO support. The higher activity of Au clusters on
defect-rich MgO than on defect-poor MgO was observed and ab initio simulations indicate that partial

M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

431

Fig. 5. Catalytic activities of Au clusters supported on MgO for CO oxidation as a function of the number of Au atoms [36].

electron transfer from the surface of the Au clusters

and oxygen-vacancy defects in the support play an essential role for the genesis of catalytic activity [35,36].
An attempt to add Au atoms on Pt(3 3 5) to change
CO adsorption properties may be one of the valuable
approaches for a new CO oxidation catalyst [37].

Gold supported on Fe2 O3 appears to be advantageous in commercialization over Au/TiO2 in the lower
cost and higher availability of Fe2 O3 and in catalytic
performance not only for CO oxidation but also for
other reactions such as oxidative decomposition of
amine compounds. There are still a few reports that

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M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

oxidic Au species act as active sites [38,39]. Although

this conclusion is drawn from a relation between the
amount of Au+ in fresh catalysts and catalytic activity,
the sample after reaction is speculated to be composed
of increased number of small metallic Au particles
and of decreased amount of oxidic Au species. The
involvement of lattice oxygen of Fe2 O3 in CO oxidation is proposed [40,41], however, because of the low
reactivity and mobility of lattice oxygen at low temperatures it is more likely that oxygen adsorbed at the
periphery is the active species. Recently, a few reports
emphasize the importance of structural transformation
of the Fe2 O3 support [42,43].
The above Au/Fe2 O3 catalysts were prepared by
co-precipitation, whereas liquid-phase grafting by
using Au-phosphine complex can also give active
catalysts [44,45]. Although long-term stability of
Au/Fe2 O3 should be checked in detail, a good performance of Au/Fe2 O3 is reported for selective CO oxidation in H2 -rich gas [46], which is now an important
subject related to polymer electrolyte fuel cells.
Some papers deal with the effect of preparation
and pretreatment conditions [4753]. Unfortunately,
the conclusions are not always generalized for creating highly dispersed and active Au catalysts, because
the comparisons were made only among the catalyst
samples which the authors made. Improvement of the
impregnation method was tried by high-temperature
reduction (HTR), calcination (C), and low-temperature
reduction (LTR) [47]. HTR is necessary to remove
chloride, while C is necessary to oxidize the catalyst
surface. LTR may remove oxygen adsorbed on the Au
surfaces and probably to moisten the catalyst sample,
which increases the catalytic activity for CO oxidation
[32]. However, the activities of thus prepared catalysts
did not exceed those by depositionprecipitation.
Depositionprecipitation (DP) using urea [48,49]
may not also be advantageous over that using NaOH,
because NH4 + often causes the formation of larger Au
particles. Both in DP and in co-precipitation, metal
hydroxide precursors should be precipitated in a short
period to have homogeneous size distribution. Therefore, in DP, the pH of aqueous solution of HAuCl4
should be fixed at a point from 6 to 10 and then the
support materials should be put into this solution instantaneously, whereas in co-precipitation, the aqueous mixture of HAuCl4 and the metal nitrate should
be added to the aqueous solution, containing an excess

of Na2 CO3 instantaneously, not by drop-wise manner

[50].
One of the promising fields of application of Au catalysts is CO2 lasers. It has long been known that coating of the inside-walls of the glass of laser discharge
tube with Au resulted in the substantial improvement
of the performance of sealed-off direct current excited
CO2 lasers [54]. The performance of radio-frequency
excited CO2 lasers can also be enhanced by a joint action of the Au coating of electrodes and the addition
of CO at a high concentration (48 vol%) [55,56]. The
role of CO is explained by the adsorption on the Au
surfaces to prevent them from being deactivated by
oxygen species. This phenomenon is consistent with
the results obtained at 90 K for the reactivities of CO
and oxygen preadsorbed; the latter is more stably adsorbed and less reactive to form CO2 [12].

3. Epoxidation of propylene
Since Hayashi found that Au supported on TiO2
(Degussa, p-25) could catalyze the epoxidation of
propylene in the gas phase containing O2 and H2
[57], the catalytic properties of Au/TiO2 and related
systems have attracted chemical industries [58] as
well as academia. Propylene oxide (PO) is one of
the important bulk chemicals, which is used for producing polyurethane and polyols. It is produced in
the world at 3.5 million tonnes per year, providing a
market of US$ 7 billion per year. Current industrial
processes need two-staged chemical reactions using
either Cl2 or organic peroxides yielding byproducts
stoichiometrically. Au catalysts, which produce PO
in one stage without byproducts other than H2 O, are
expected to replace these processes.
There are four important factors for Au catalysts
in the direct epoxidation of propylene. The first one
is catalyst preparation methods. As shown in Fig. 6,
impregnation method did not result in selective oxidation but complete oxidation to H2 O and CO2 , whereas
DP method led to epoxidation with selectivities above
90% [59]. A major difference in the fine structure of
the Au/TiO2 catalysts is that in the case of impregnation, a large (several tens nm in diameter) spherical
Au particle is simply mixed with smaller TiO2 particles, while in the case of DP, small hemispherical Au
particles are strongly contacted with a TiO2 particle at

M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

Fig. 6. Epoxidation of propylene over Au/TiO2 prepared by different methods.

their flat planes. It appears that the strong contact of

Au particles with the TiO2 support, giving longer distance of the perimeter interface, is indispensable for
the epoxidation of propylene.
The second one is the appropriate selection of the
support materials. Among single metal oxides, only
TiO2 makes Au selective for the reaction. Furthermore, the crystalline structure of TiO2 should be
anatase but not rutile and amorphous [59]. Au supported on anatase is selective only at temperatures
below 373 K, which is not sufficiently higher than the
boiling point of PO (307 K) so that the conversion of
propylene remains small. Therefore, a variety of titanium silicates, as well as Ti deposited on SiO2, have
been tested as a support for Au particles [5867].
When these Ti/SiO2 support materials are used, Au
is selective to epoxidation up to 473 K, yielding improved conversion nearly to 5% [58,62,67]. A reaction pathway has been proposed that H2 O2 is formed
on the Au surfaces and then transformed into OOH
on Ti4+ tetrahedrally coordinated in SiO2 matrices
to react there with propylene [62,66,67]. Among titanosilicates such as TS-1, Ti- zeolite, Ti-MCM41,
Ti-MCM48, having different sizes and structures of
pores, Ti-MCM48 is proved to give the best catalytic

433

performance [67]. The atomic ratio of Ti/Si should be

within 1/1003/100 to keep Ti cations isolated from
each other in the matrix. When Ti/Si exceeds 3/100,
TiO2 species are assembled to yield CO2 at temperatures above 373 K. This upper limit on Ti/Si ratio
is also valid to Ti deposited on SiO2 . We have also
tested SiO2 supports with a variety of specific surface
area from 60 m2 /g (non-porous) [63] to 800 m2 /g.
It appears that there is an optimum pore size, its
distribution, and specific surface area.
The third one is the size of Au particles. When the
mean diameter of Au particles is smaller than 2 nm,
propylene is hydrogenated to form propane [57]. This
phenomenon has also been confirmed by a group other
than ours [66].
The fourth one is the additives. When titanium silicates are used as a support and Au is deposited by
DP, complete washing to remove Na and Cl causes the
propyonaldehyde formation instead of PO, while simple filtration of the Au(OH)3 precursor precipitated on
titanosilicates without further washing gives PO selectively [60]. This result strongly indicates that alkaline and/or chloride may play an important role in the
selective epoxidation. It has been claimed that many
alkaline and alkaline earth chlorides work as a good
promoter [58,62]. However, the optimum amount and
sites and the mechanistic role have not yet been understood.
For commercialization of the direct gas-phase
epoxidation of propylene, the gradual deactivation of
Au catalysts in an hourly basis is one of the problems
to be solved. The reasons are partly clarified to be
the accumulation of acidic and origomerized species
on the catalyst surface [66,67]. Although there is no
appreciable growth in the size of Au particles, the
initial activity cannot be fully restored even by calcination in air at 573 K to burn off the hydrocarbon
residues.
The kinetic study has also been done by Delgass
and coworkers [65]. They also reported that Au(OH)3
deposited on TS-1 by DP after drying can selectively
give PO with conversion of propylene of about 25% by
gradually raising the catalyst temperature in a stream
of reactant mixture of propylene, O2 , and H2 [68]. Although the insufficient reproducibility may be speculated, this conversion is surprisingly high, because
10% conversion at a space velocity of 7000 h1 provides sufficient commercial productivity.

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M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

Fundamental research has also been initiated by

Goodmans group, using Au(1 1 1) and Au(1 0 0) for
the adsorption of propylene [69]. Oxygen adsorbed on
these smooth surfaces was not selective to form propylene oxide. Further work on the steps, edges, corners
of metallic Au nanoparticles and on Au clusters is
needed.

4. Water-gas-shift reaction
Owing to the possible applications of polymer
electrolyte fuel cells to automobiles and to residential electricity-heat delivery systems, low-temperature
water-gas-shift reaction is attracting renewed interests. In comparison with commercial catalysts based
on Ni or Cu, which is operated at 900 K or at 600 K,
respectively, supported Au catalysts appear to be advantageous in operation at a temperature as low as
473 K.
During the course of investigation on the hydrogenation of CO2 over supported Au catalysts, it was
found that Au/TiO2 was selective to the formation of
CO, namely, reverse water-gas-shift reaction at a temperature as low as 473 K [70]. Later, Au/TiO2 was confirmed to be active for water-gas-shift reaction [71].
Andreeva and her coworkers were the first to apply Au
catalysts to water-gas-shift reaction [72] and reported
that Au/Fe2 O3 and Au/ZrO2 were the most active. Recently, they reported that well-crystallized supports led
to higher catalytic activity [73]. Until now, the reasons are unknown why only TiO2 and ZrO2 (Group
IV metal oxides), and Fe2 O3 are effective and why the
crystallinity of these metal oxides appreciably affect
the catalytic activity.
Although the stability may not be good, Au/NaY
is reported to be active for water-gas-shift reaction at
373 K [74]. The redox cycle of Au+ and Au0 is assumed to operate for CO activation, while NaY support for H2 O activation.

5. Hydrogenation of unsaturated hydrocarbon

In general, the hydrogenation of hydrocarbons is
structure insensitive reaction over most of metal catalysts [75]. Over supported Au catalysts it is also the
case: among Al2 O3 , SiO2 , TiO2 supports, no appre-

Fig. 7. Dependence of catalytic activity of Au/Al2 O3 catalyst for

(a) CO oxidation and (b) acetylene hydrogenation on the diameter
of Au particles [77].

ciable difference is observed and the effect of the size

of Au particles on the TOF is not obvious in butadiene
hydrogenation [76].
A characteristic feature of Au catalysts is that partial hydrogenation takes place very selectively: butadiene to butenes, acetylene to ethylene [76,77]. In the
hydrogenation of , unsaturated aldehyde, selectivity to the hydrogenation of C=O against that of C=C
has been recently reported to reach 4050% when Au
particles are larger than 2 nm in diameter [78,79]. In
both cases of acetylene hydrogenation over Au/Al2 O3
(Fig. 7) and acrolein hydrogenation over Au/TiO2 and
Au/ZrO2 , the catalytic activity per unit weight increases with a decrease in the size of Au particles down
to 2 nm, indicating metallic nature of Au is important
for hydrogenation.

6. Liquid-phase reactions
Prati and Rossi found that Au supported on activated carbon is more active and selective than other
noble catalysts for the oxidation in a MeOHH2 O
(6:4) solvent of glycols to -hydroxy acids, which are
used for cosmetics and food industries [80]. Not only
activated carbon but also -Al2 O3 and TiO2 make
Au active and selective [80,81]. An interesting feature is that over activated carbon support maximum
activity is observed when the mean diameter of Au

M. Haruta, M. Date / Applied Catalysis A: General 222 (2001) 427437

435

CO oxidation upon anodic activation in the aqueous

solution of KOH [86].

8. Conclusions
New knowledge extracted from recent publications
on Au catalysts may be summarized as follows.

Fig. 8. Dependence of catalytic activity of Au/Al2 O3 and Au/C

catalysts for the oxidation of glycols on the diameter of Au particles
[80].

particles is 78 nm, whereas the smaller Au particles

give the higher activity over -Al2 O3 and TiO2 support (Fig. 8). This can be explained as follows: smaller
Au particles can be easily fixed on the internal surfaces of carbon, consequently being less accessible
to reagents in the liquid-phase than larger Au particles located on the external surface. It should also
be noted that Au sols stabilized with polyvinylpirrolidone, and that tetrakis(hydroxymethyl) phosphonium
chloride can give uniformly dispersed Au even on activated carbon by simply dipping the support materials, giving smaller mean diameter of Au in this order.
Unsupported Au nanoparticles also present great
potentials as unique catalysts in liquid-phase reactions. One example has been recently reported:
N-methylimidazole-functionalized Au particles exhibit a good catalytic activity for cleavage of a carboxylic acid ester about 30 times as high as a reference
monomeric catalyst without Au particles [82].

7. Other reactions
It is interesting to know that the catalytic nature of
Au itself is also applicable to NOx gas sensors [83] and
to etching of Si by CF4 /O2 plasma [84]. The surfaces
of Au are more active in H2 O2 decomposition than
those of -Al2 O3 , TiO2 and SiO2 [85]. This activity
order is explained by the large OHAu chemisorption
bond of 155 kJ/mol with the OH radical becoming an
OH anion. Nanocrystal Au cores encapsulated with
thiolate monolayer are demonstrated to be both electrochemically accessible and catalytically active for

1. Extraordinarily high catalytic activity of supported

Au catalysts for CO oxidation at room temperature
arises from the reaction of CO adsorbed on the step,
edge, and corner sites of metallic Au particles with
oxygen molecules adsorbed at the perimeter sites
on the support surfaces. It is unlikely that oxidic
Au species and non-metallic small Au clusters are
responsible for the extraordinarily high catalytic
activity, although they are active to a certain extent.
2. Although catalytic chemistry of Au clusters which
are no more metallic in nature may not directly
lead to practically active catalysts, it can give an
atomic-level understanding for the activation of
oxygen at the periphery of Au particles in contact
with the support.
3. It is proposed that epoxidation of propylene proceeds through the formation of H2 O2 on the surfaces of Au particles, its capture as OOH at Ti4+
in tetrahedrally coordinated in SiO2 matrices, and
the reaction of OOH with propylene adsorbed on
the support surfaces. These pathways again prefer
long distance of perimeter around Au particles.
4. Supported Au catalysts are applicable to the
hydrogen production through low-temperature
water-gas-shift reaction and selective CO oxidation in H2 -rich streams, to the selective partial
hydrogenation of butadiene, acetylene and unsaturated aldehyde, and to the liquid-phase selective
oxidation of glycols.

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