Morphology-dependent nanocatalysis: metal oxides

The catalytic activities of nanowires,nanorods and nanoparticles of metal oxides are closely related to the exposed crystal planes.Through morphology control, the nanorod-shaped metal oxides could predominantly expose the reactive planes that usually favor the presence of active sites for the target reactions.The typical exampales are Co3O4,Fe2O3 and CeO2. Moreover,the shape of the oxide also affects the interaction with supported metal particles,altering the interface structure considerably,demonstrated by the cases of Au and Cu nanoparticles supported on CeO2 and La2O3 nanorods,respectively.These results clearly confirm that morphology control of metal oxides promotes the catalytic performance significantly