Metal catalysts have played essential roles in a wide range of chemical industrial processes [1][2][3]. For example, the copper/zinc oxide (Cu/ZnO) catalyst has been especially important for methanol synthesis [4] and alcohol reforming to produce hydrogen for fuel cell applications [5]. Energy, environmental and resource problems have escalated in recent times. Therefore, the development of high-performance catalytic materials that can effectively and selectively promote desired reactions is required for sustainability.
Metal nanocatalystsNanosized metal particles have received an increasing amount of attention in various fields, such as in electronic [6], optical [7] and biomedical [8] applications, because of their unique and specific properties. In particular, the extremely large specific surface areas of metal nanoparticles (NPs) are very advantageous for effective catalytic reactions [9]. This has led to the active use of metal NPs as heterogeneous catalysts for a variety of industrial processes [9] including energy conversion, fine chemical synthesis and environmental cleanup. For example, gold (Au) nanocatalysts have received considerable interest for use in various reactions, including the reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) in the liquid phase [10] and low-temperature carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation [11] in the gas phase, even though bulk Au is typically regarded as an ineffective catalyst. However, the practical implementation of metal NPs is difficult, because they are difficult to handle and they aggregate easily, which minimizes their surface area. The aggregation of metal NPs results in the formation of ordinary bulk metals, and this consequently deteriorates their excellent functionalities. Therefore, catalytic metal NPs are generally attached to various support materials, such as polymers [9,12] and metal oxide powders [9,13]. Since these supported catalysts are fine and are handled with difficulty in practice, they are generally fashioned as beads or pellets. This eventually decreases their catalytic reactivity, because of the poor contact efficiency between the reactants and the catalytically active sites [14]. In addition, filling a reactor with solid catalysts can cause a high pressure drop, local reactant flow and an uneven thermal environment inside the catalyst layer, leading to an inefficient overall process, particularly for flow-type reactions. Therefore, establishing an efficient and practical immobilization technique that enables highly active metal NPs to be attached to and exposed on easyto-handle porous matrices is a challenge.
On-paper Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles for Catalytic ApplicationsDepartment of Agro-environmental Sciences, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan ( † Present address : Department of Biomaterials Sciences, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan)Abstract: We discuss the successful in ...