The New Materials Science of Catalysis: Toward Controlling Selectivity by Designing the Structure of the Active Site

New self-assembly and nanotechnology synthetic methodology is finding its way into the preparation of heterogeneous catalysts. The new approaches afford better design of active sites to fine-tune the selectivity of specific catalytic processes. Examples are provided here for the preparation of supports for catalysts with well-defined structures, for the use of nanostructures with well-defined sizes and shapes as active phases, for the grafting of molecular functionality to solid surfaces, and for the assembly of complex nanostructures to illustrate the recent advances in this area of research. It is argued that by combining these new synthetic tools with mechanistic studies via surface science and theoretical studies, it should be finally possible to design highly selective catalysts from first principles, the holy grail of the field of catalysis.