A Career in Catalysis: Masatake Haruta

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Professor Masatake Haruta’s distinguished scientific achievements are highlighted in heterogeneous catalysis by gold (Au). In 1982, he discovered that Au became highly active for CO oxidation even at 200 K when gold was deposited as nanoparticles (NPs) smaller than 5 nm on 3d transition metal oxides. After this finding, he and his co-workers have developed many preparation methods for the deposition of Au as NPs and clusters onto a wide variety of supports. By kinetic, theoretical, and surface science studies, Haruta and co-workers revealed interesting catalytic features of Au, including reaction mechanisms which are greatly different from those of Pd and Pt. Haruta and co-workers also found that supported Au NPs catalyzed direct oxidation of propylene to propylene oxide using O 2 and H 2, and subsequently O 2 alone in the presence of H 2 O.