Recent Topics in Nanotechnology: Gold Atom (Crown Jewel) Catalysts and Hybrid Organic Thermoelectric Films

Professor Naoki Toshima

Department of Applied Chemistry, Tokyo University of Science Yamaguchi, SanyoOnoda, Yamaguchi 756-0884, Japan

E-mail: toshima@rs.tus.ac.jp

Time：2015.4.23   9:30-10:30

Location：701-B501

Abstract: Nanoscience and nanotechnology are now applied to various fields in the world. Here I will present two topics developed in our group quite recently.

The first topics is concerned with single-atom catalysts of so-called Crown Jewel catalyst which have a top gold atoms on palladium clusters and highly active for aerobic oxidation of glucose (Nature Materials, 2012). Here, we prepared Crown Jewel-structured (Ir/Pd)/Au trimetallic nanoclusters having the highest catalytic activity for the glucose oxidation by galvanic replacement reaction of Ir/Pd bimetallic nanoclusters with Au atoms at top positions. The high activity of the top Au atoms can be explained by the electronic properties of top Au atoms (Advanced Materials, 27(8), 1383-1388 (2015).

The second topics is concerned with conversion of waste heat energy to electric energy with flexible organic thermoelectric devices, which have much advantages compared with traditional inorganic ones. The hybrid organic thermoelectric materials prepared by using nanoparticles of a polymer complex, carbon nanotubes and poly(vinyl chloride) have been discovered to be developed without conducting polymers like PEDOT-PSS and have a high thermoelectric performance (ZT = 0.3). The hybrid materials are stable and easily applied to constructing flexible thermoelectric devices with high maximum electric power (Advanced Materials, online-published, 2015).