Gold-Copper Nanoparticles: Nanostructural Evolution and Bifunctional Catalytic Sites

Understanding of the atomic-scale structure is essential for exploiting the unique catalytic properties of any nanoalloy catalyst. This report describes novel findings of an investigation of the nanoscale alloying of gold–copper (AuCu) nanoparticles and its impact on the surface catalytic functions. Two pathways have been explored for the formation of AuCu nanoparticles of different compositions, including wet chemical synthesis from mixed Au- and Cu-precursor molecules, and nanoscale alloying via an evolution of mixed Au- and Cu-precursor nanoparticles near the nanoscale melting temperatures. For the evolution of mixed precursor nanoparticles, synchrotron X-ray-based in situ real-time XRD was used to monitor the structural changes, revealing nanoscale alloying and reshaping toward an fcc-type nanoalloy (particle or cube) via a partial melting–resolidification mechanism. The nanoalloys supported on carbon or silica were characterized by in situ high-energy XRD/atomic pair disributoin function (PDF) analys...

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