Substrates change nanoparticle reactivity
(Phys.org)—Nanoscale materials tend to behave differently than their bulk counterparts. While there are many theories as to why this happens, technological advances in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) have allowed researchers to investigate many of these causes by looking at the properties of a single nanoparticle. One area that requires further investigation is how substrate topology affects nanoparticle reactivity. Using the well-known interaction between carbon monoxide (CO) and substrate-supported palladium (Pd) nanoparticles, researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and University College London have demonstrated, for the first time, that the topology of the titanium dioxide (TiO2) substrate affects Pd nanoparticle reactivity. Their findings are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.