Abstract
Recent progress in the understanding of the fascinating catalysis
of CO combustion by supported gold particles is summarized. Focusing
on size-selected gold clusters consisting of only a few atoms, that
is, the size regime with properties nonscalable from the bulk properties,
we discuss the current knowledge of the different factors controlling
the reactivity at the molecular level. These factors include the
role of the oxide support, its defects, cluster charging as well
as the structural fluxionality of clusters, the cluster size dependency,
and the promotional effect of water. By combining experimental results
with quantum mechanical ab initio calculations, a detailed picture
of the reaction mechanism emerges. While similar mechanisms might
be active for gold nanoparticles in the scalable size regime, it
is shown that for different systems (defined by the cluster size,
the support, experimental conditions, etc.) the reaction mechanism
differs and, hence, no generalized explanation for the catalytic
driving force of small gold particles can be given.
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