Heterogeneous catalysis for green chemistry based on nanocrystals

Abstract Modern society has an ever-increasing demand for environmentally friendly catalytic processes. Catalysis research is working towards a solution through the development of effective heterogeneous catalysts for environment-related applications. Nanotechnologies have provided effective strategies for the preparation of nanocrystals (NCs) with well-defined sizes, shapes and compositions. Precise control of these NCs provides an important foundation for the studies of structure-performance relationships in catalysis, which is critical to the design of NCs with optimized catalytic performances for practical applications. We focus on recent advances in the development of bottom-up strategies to control NCs structures for some key catalytic applications, including CO oxidation, selective oxidation of alcohols, semihydrogenation of alkynes, and selective hydrogenation of unsaturated aldehydes and nitrobenzene. These key applications have been a popular research focus because of their significance in green chemistry. Herein we also discuss the scientific understandings of the active species and active structures of these systems to gain an insight for rational design of efficient catalytic systems for these catalytic reactions.