Shedding light on decahedral nanoparticle catalysts.

Adam Slabon

doi:10.1107/s2052252519005621

Abstract

Control over the chemical composition and atomic ordering in bimetallic nanoparticles has driven the recent rapid progress in electrocatalysis. Liang & Yu [IUCrJ (2019), 6, 447-453] elucidate the structural differences between single metal and intermetallic multiply twinned decahedral nanoparticles on the example of AuCu particles and correlate the catalytic properties with their structure at the atomic level.

Highlights

Nanoparticles can occur in many different equilibrium shapes, such as spheres, cubes, octahedra and decahedra
Considering the importance of bimetallic systems to create highly active nanoparticle catalysts, the correlation of activity and structural features is the key for a rational development of future nanoscopic materials
Writing in IUCrJ, Liang and Yu elucidate the structural differences between single metal and intermetallic multiply twinned decahedral particles on the example of AuCu nanoparticles with an ordered structure (Liang & Yu, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Nanoparticles can occur in many different equilibrium shapes, such as spheres, cubes, octahedra and decahedra. In addition to single-crystalline nanoparticles, one can observe the extensively studied multiply twinned particles (Ino, 1966). A fivefold twinned decahedral nanoparticle can be considered as an ensemble of five connected tetrahedrons and the direction along the fivefold axis is the h110i axis of the f.c.c. structure (Fig. 1).

Results

Conclusion