Catalytic hydrogenation by noble-metal nanocrystals with well-defined facets: a review

Abstract

Recent studies with better catalytic models show the structure sensitivity of noble-metals for catalytic hydrogenation. The size and shape of noble-metal nanocrystals have a great impact on their reaction performance in hydrogenation. Essentially, the exposed crystal planes, which primarily determine the morphology of a nanocrystal, tremendously affect its catalytic behavior. Therefore, many new methods involving controllable nucleation and growth processes have been developed to prepare uniform noble-metal nanocrystals with tunable sizes and shapes for catalytic hydrogenation. This paper presents a brief overview of the activity and selectivity of noble-metal nanocrystals with well-defined facets in the field of catalytic hydrogenation. High activity and controllable selectivity in hydrogenation have been achieved based on the shaped noble-metal nanocatalysts.