Core-shell catalysts in Nature Materials

Debye physicists and chemists control catalyst structure at the atomic scale

Novel core-shell catalyst design published in Nature Materials

Bericht in het Nederlands – Press Release in English – full paper – free version – highlight in C&E

Our MCC group members, Jessi, Liselotte, Giorgio and Petra, found a new way to create better bimetallic catalysts. In a collaborative effort with Soft Condensed Matter (UU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Sorbonne University, they show that the catalytic activity of bimetallic catalysts can be enhanced up to 50 times by arranging atoms in a core-shell design, rather than in a random alloy. Using this core-shell design, they surprisingly find that not only the type of atoms at the surface of the nanoparticle impacts the performance, but that also the nature of the atoms in the layers below the surface matters. Although the current core-shell materials already exceeded the expectations, the group is already thinking ahead of all the exciting new catalyst to make.

Jessi E.S. van der Hoeven^1,2, Jelena Jelic⁴, Liselotte A. Olthof¹, Giorgio Totarella¹, Relinde J.A. van Dijk-Moes^,2, Jean-Marc Krafft³, Catherine Louis³, Felix Studt⁴, Alfons van Blaaderen², and Petra E. de Jongh¹ Nature Materials, 2021, DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-00996-3

¹ Materials Chemistry and Catalysis ²Soft Condensed Matter ³ Sorbonne Université ⁴Karlsruhe Institute of Technology