Doping gold nanoclusters with palladium has been reported to increase their catalytic activity and stability. PdAu 24 nanoclusters, with the Pd dopant atom located at the center of the Au cluster core, were supported on titania and applied in catalytic CO oxidation, showing significantly higher activity than supported monometallic Au 25 nanoclusters. After pretreatment, operando DRIFTS spectroscopy detected CO adsorbed on Pd during CO oxidation, indicating migration of the Pd dopant atom from the Au cluster core to the cluster surface. Increasing the number of Pd dopant atoms in the Au structure led to incorporation of Pd mostly in the S–(M–S) n protecting staples, as evidenced by in situ XAFS. A combination of oxidative and reductive thermal pretreatment resulted in the formation of isolated Pd surface sites within the Au surface. The combined analysis of in situ XAFS, operando DRIFTS, and ex situ XPS thus revealed the structural evolution of bimetallic PdAu nanoclusters, yielding a Pd single-site catalyst of 2.7 nm average particle size with improved CO oxidation activity.

Monolayer protected Au nanocluster catalysts are known to undergo structural changes during catalytic reactions, including dissociation and migration of ligands onto the support, which strongly affects their activity and stability. To better understand how the nature of ligands influences the catalytic activity of such catalysts, three types of ceria supported Au nanoclusters with different kinds of ligands (thiolates, phosphines and a mixture thereof) have been studied, employing CO oxidation as model reaction. The thiolate-protected Au 25 /CeO 2 showed significantly higher CO conversion after activation at 250 °C than the cluster catalysts possessing phosphine ligands. Temperature programmed oxidation and in situ infrared spectroscopy revealed that while the phosphine ligands seemed to decompose and free Au surface was exposed, temperatures higher than 250 °C are required to efficiently remove them from the whole catalyst system. Moreover, the presence of residues on the support seemed to have much greater influence on the reactivity than the gold particle size.

In heterogeneous catalysis research, the reactivity of the individual nanofacets of single particle is typically not resolved. We applied in situ field electron microscopy (FEM) to the apex of a curved rhodium crystal (radius of 650 nanometers), providing high spatial (~2 nanometers) and time resolution (~2 ms) of oscillatory catalytic hydrogen oxidation, imaging adsorbed species and reaction fronts on the individual facets. Using ionized water as imaging species, the active sites were directly imaged by field ion microscopy (FIM). The catalytic behavior of differently structured nanofacets and the extent of coupling between them were monitored individually. We observed limited interfacet coupling, entrainment, frequency-locking, and reconstruction-induced collapse of spatial coupling. The experimental results are backed-up by microkinetic modelling of time-dependent oxygen species coverages and oscillation frequencies.

Metal–support interaction in rhodium–perovskite systems was studied using LSF (La0.6Sr0.4FeO3−δ) and STF (SrTi0.7Fe0.3O3−δ) supports to disentangle different manifestations of strong or reactive metal–support interaction. Electron microscopy and catalytic characterization in methane steam reforming/CO2 methanation reveal that reduction in hydrogen at 673 K and 873 K causes different extents of Fe exsolution. Depending on the perovskite reducibility, Fe–Rh alloy particles are observed. No signs of strong metal–support interaction (i.e., encapsulation of metal particles) by reduced oxide species were observed. As re‐oxidation in oxygen at 873 K did not fully restore the initial structures, the interaction between Rh and the perovskites manifests itself in irreversible alloy formation. Catalytic effects are the suppression of methane reactivity with increasing prereduction temperature. The results show the limits of the strong metal–support interaction concept in complex metal–oxide systems.

Scanning photoelectron microscopy (SPEM) and photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) allow local surface analysis and visualising ongoing reactions on a µm-scale. These two spatio-temporal imaging methods are applied to polycrystalline Rh, representing a library of well-defined high-Miller-index surface structures. The combination of these techniques enables revealing the anisotropy of surface oxidation, as well as its effect on catalytic hydrogen oxidation. In the present work we observe, using locally-resolved SPEM, structure-sensitive surface oxide formation, which is summarised in an oxidation map and quantitatively explained by the novel step density (SDP) and step edge (SEP) parameters. In situ PEEM imaging of ongoing H2 oxidation allows a direct comparison of the local reactivity of metallic and oxidised Rh surfaces for the very same different stepped surface structures, demonstrating the effect of Rh surface oxides. Employing the velocity of propagating reaction fronts as indicator of surface reactivity, we observe a high transient activity of Rh surface oxide in H2 oxidation. The corresponding velocity map reveals the structure-dependence of such activity, representing a direct imaging of a structure-activity relation for plenty of well-defined surface structures within one sample.