Reversible restructuring of supported Au nanoparticles during butadiene hydrogenation revealed by operando GISAXS/GIWAXS

DOI: 10.1039/C7CC01887H

Authors: David Martin (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH); University of Amsterdam) , Donato Decarolis (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH)) , Yaroslav I. Odarchenko (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH)) , Jennifer J. Herbert (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH); Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)) , Thomas Arnold (Diamond Light Source) , Jonathan Rawle (Diamond Light Source) , Chris Nicklin (Diamond Light Source) , Hans-gerd Boyen (Hasselt University) , Andrew M. Beale (University College London; Research Complex at Harwell (RCaH))
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Chem. Commun. , VOL 35

State: Published (Approved)
Published: April 2017
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 10488 , 12780

Abstract: Periodically arranged, monodisperse gold nanoparticles supported on flat silicon substrates were studied for the hydrogenation of 1,3-butadiene under operando conditions using Grazing Incidence Small- and Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (GISAXS/GIWAXS). It was found that the composition and shape of the nanoparticles depends very much on the chemical environment; the particles are shown to be dynamic, undergoing reversible size and shape change particularly during catalytic reaction, highlighting a dynamism often not observed in traditional studies. Specifically, the size of the Au nanoparticles increases during butadiene hydrogenation and this is attributed to the partial removal of a Au2O3 at the metal–oxide interface and consequential shape change of the nanoparticle from a more hemispherical particle to a particle with a larger height to width ratio.

Subject Areas: Materials, Chemistry


Instruments: I07-Surface & interface diffraction