Superfluid helium nanoreactor takes single atom catalysis understanding to the next level

Amazing stuff! Let this sink for a moment: isolated single atom catalyst! This sounds very promising!



"Chemists have isolated a gold atom in a super-cooled liquid helium nanoreactor to create a single atom catalyst that avoids surface interactions. The gold is held in a van der Waals complex with the reactant, in this case a diol molecule. Using a combination of mass spectrometry and theoretical calculations, the team has unpicked how gold catalyses a reaction that splits the diol in two. ... ‘The most interesting aspect for me was the experimental approach to place one gold atom inside a helium droplet, and to perform the reaction there,’ ... ‘Obviously, this system is very different to regular single atom catalysis because there is no support. In most cases, bonding to the support changes the properties of the metal atoms, and the combination is responsible for catalytic activity.’ ..."



Superfluid helium nanoreactor takes single atom catalysis understanding to the next level | Research | Chemistry World



Here is the link to the underlying research article (open access):

Ion-molecule reactions catalyzed by a single gold atom