Correlating Structure and Function of Metal Nanoparticles for Catalysis

This paper summarizes several studies correlating the structure and function of nanoparticle catalysts. Three types of alloy nanoparticles are considered, random alloy, core@shell and alloy-core@shell structures. In the first two cases, the focus is to build theoretical models to understand previous experimental results. In the latter case, calculations play a greater role in leading the development of nanoparticle catalysts. We demonstrate that iteration between theory and experiment can facilitate an understanding of nanoparticle catalysts and reduce the time and effort involved in the design of new catalysts.