Abstract
Gold nanoclusters protected by ligands (e.g., thiolate) have emerged as a new class of nanomaterial in recent years. Significant progress in the synthetic chemistry has produced a series of atomically precise nanoclusters (denoted as Aun(SR)m, where n and m represent the numbers of metal atoms and ligands, respectively). The ultrasmall Aun(SR)m nanoclusters (subnanometer to 2nm in metal core diameter) exhibit strong electron-energy quantization effects due to their ultrasmall size, in contrast with the continuous electronic conduction band in conventional metallic gold nanoparticles. With respect to the catalytic application of nanoclusters, a range of chemical reactions have been demonstrated such as catalytic oxidation, selective oxidation, chemoselective hydrogenation, and carbon–carbon coupling reactions. With crystallographically characterized nanoclusters, deep insight into the catalytic mechanism can be obtained. Overall, these atomically precise Aun(SR)m nanoclusters serve as new model catalysts and provide an exciting opportunity to correlate the catalytic properties with the atomic structure of nanoclusters.
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