Highly Active Heterogeneous 3 nm Gold Nanoparticles on Mesoporous Carbon as Catalysts for Low-Temperature Selective Oxidation and Reduction in Water

Gold nanoparticles approximately 3 nm in diameter free of protecting agent were loaded onto less-interacting, self-assembling mesoporous carbon using a two-step carbonization method. The catalyst exhibits TOF value of 478 and 31.2 h –1 at 25 and 0 °C, comparable to, and much higher than an 8.9 nm gold-supported nanocatalyst, respectively, for the water-mediated selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol. These results highlight the improvement in the sorption of dioxygen species on surface atoms of gold nanoparticles at low temperatures due to electronic modification by the reduction of the particle size.