CMSP Seminar Series at ICTP Stasi Seminar Rm: P. FORNASIERO Thursday 2 March at 11:30

[Condensed Matter Section]

ICTP Seminar Series in Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics
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Thursday 2 March at 11:30 a.m.

Luigi Stasi Seminar Room, first floor, ICTP Leonardo building
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Speaker:
Paolo FORNASIERO (Dept. of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences
and ICCOM Trieste Research Unit, University of Trieste)

Title:
Sustainable and Challenging Catalytic Applications of Well-defined
Nanocatalysts


Abstract:

Heterogeneous catalysis has grown from an art to a science. Numerous
catalytic materials are being proposed every day in the literature, with
surprising and exciting new reactivities being disclosed, and interesting
novel concepts being proposed. The study of catalytic processes starting
from better defined materials that are tuned in morphology, composition
and shape is opening new perspectives for catalyst design. For example,
use of nanocrystals in CO oxidation turned out to be crucially dependent
on the interfacial contact of the support (ceria) with the metal 
nanoparticle
active sites [1], while valorization of biomasses were employed as 
reactants
for catalysis by carbon-supported, Pt and PtCo nanocrystals (NCs) with
controlled size and composition [2]. A particular type of structure is 
represented
by nanosized core-shell phases, which proved to be superior catalysts in 
several
catalytic reactions, such as methane combustion [3] as well as 
photocatalytic
hydrogen evolution from biomass-derived substrates [4] or 
electrocatalytic water
electrolysis [5] when integrated with multi-walled carbon nanotubes. 
Every day,
nanotechnology applied to heterogeneous catalysts is creating new 
opportunities
for important breakthroughs.

[1] Cargnello M. et al., Science 341 (2013) 771.

[2] Luo J.et al., ACS Catal 6 (2016) 4095.

[3] Cargnello M., et al. Science 337 (2012) 713.

[4] Beltram A. et al, Green Chem. (2017) DOI: 10.1039/C6GC01979J

[5] Valenti G., et al., Nature Commun. (2016) article number: 13549