Hydrogen Dissociation by Gold Clusters

Abstract

The rate of H2–D2 exchange increases in proportion to the inverse square of the mean diameter of gold particles supported on TiO2 (see picture), which indicates that hydrogen dissociation takes place on the perimeter interfaces between the gold and TiO2 and that the catalytic activity for H2 dissociation is correlated neither to a change in the fraction of edge or corner sites nor to a change in the electronic nature induced by the quantum size effect.