US researchers have found away to study defects on surfaces of nanoparticles, which are thought to be critical for catalytic activity. Metal nanoparticles are the key to the activity of many catalysts, including those in car catalytic converters. To improve these catalysts it is important to know what is happening at the atomic level. Miguel Jose-Yacaman and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have found that, using microscopy and computer modelling, they can obtain much more detail than before about nanoparticle surface defects.
展开▼
