Prestigious journal selects CCI work as their featured article

A paper published by Davies, Morgan & Willock from the CCI has been selected as a featured article in the prestigious Journal of Catalysis.

The article is one of a series published by the team from their investigations into the effect of the surface on the deposition of gold nanoparticles on carbon. The overall project, is funded by the EPSRC (grant No. EP/I038748/1) and aims to improve our understanding of Au/carbon catalysts but has implications relevant to many other carbon supported catalysts.

The Cardiff team used the novel approach of studying gold deposition at modified graphite surfaces rather than high surface area carbons commonly studied. This enabled them to isolate specific functional groups and relate the subsequent behavior of the gold to the initial surface chemistry. Furthermore, the relatively straightforward nature of the carbon surfaces in this study allowed a direct comparison of experimental data with theory shedding new light on the nucleation of gold clusters on carbon.

Key experiments in the work were performed by A-level students Rebecca Burgess & Thomas Legge who were sponsored by the Nuffield foundation for a summer project and by Amy Lai, a Cardiff undergraduate student supported by the University's CUROP scheme and the Royal Society of Chemistry's Analytical Chemistry's Trust fund.

Paper: (Open access)  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002195171400356X