Photo-induced Surface Chemistry on Catalytic Nanoclusters

催化剂技术在美国经济中占超过1万亿美元的收入，其应用范围从药物和替代能源燃料电池到新型和创新服装纤维的开发。然而，决定这些催化过程如何以及为什么发生的基本化学和物理学对于许多催化系统来说仍然是未知的。在最小的水平上理解这些催化系统是现代化学的目标，因为研究组成部分可能会导致更好地理解散装材料。通过研究催化系统的纳米团簇，我们可以基本上监测它们的化学和物理性质的演变，因为我们一次一个原子地构建成大块材料。当然，在许多情况下，已经发现纳米团簇表现出极端和意想不到的化学和物理性质，与体相和原子成分都非常不同。发现和应用这些特性是纳米技术领域的一个重要主题。 该研究计划研究工业部门常用的小（2-20个原子）金属簇的结构和反应性。我们的目标是了解产生材料催化性能的基本化学和物理过程，例如汽车三元催化转化器中的材料。我们研究的最终目标是定制催化材料，以提高效率，从而降低能耗。这项研究涉及使用激光来引发与气相金属纳米团簇表面结合的原子和分子之间的反应，我们使用非常灵敏的检测技术进行监测。然后，我们将实验结果与非常复杂的计算机预测进行比较，通过这种结合实验/计算的方法，我们能够更好地了解支撑这些系统的化学和物理学。

Catalyst technologies account for over $1 trillion of revenue in the U.S. economy, and applications range from medicines and alternative energy fuel cells to the development of new and innovative clothing fibres. The underlying chemistry and physics that dictates how and why these catalytic processes occur, however, remains largely unknown for many catalytic systems. Understanding these catalytic systems on the smallest level is a goal of modern chemistry, since studying the constituent pieces may lead to a better understanding of bulk materials. By investigating nanoclusters of catalytic systems we can essentially monitor the evolution of their chemical and physical properties as we build up to bulk material an atom at a time. Of course, in many instances nanoclusters have been found to exhibit extreme and unexpected chemical and physical properties quite dissimilar from both the bulk phase and the atomic constituents. Discovering and applying these properties is a major theme in the field of nanotechnology. This research program investigates the structures and reactivites of small (2-20 atom) clusters of metals commonly used in the industrial sector. Our aim is to understand the fundamental chemical and physical processes that give rise to the catalytic properties of materials such as those present in the automobile 3-way catalyic converter. The end goal of our research is the tailoring of catalytic materials so as to improve efficiency, thereby reducing energy consumption. This research involves the use of lasers to initiate reaction amongst atoms and molecules bound to the surface of the gas-phase metal nanoclusters, which we monitor using very sensitive detection techniques. We then compare our experimental results with very sophisticated computer predictions, and through this combined experimental / computational approach we are able to garner a better understanding of the chemistry and physics underpinning these systems.