Immobilized Metal Nanocluster Catalysis

Immobilization provides a straightforward approach to stabilize the catalytically active but sensitive metal nanoclusters. To balance their catalytic activity and structural stability, the selection of supports is crucial. Too strong interactions between metal nanoclusters and supports would highly suppress the catalytic activity of metal nanoclusters, while too weak interactions between them cause the aggregation or decomposition of metal nanoclusters. Carbon nanomaterials, metals and metallic oxides, polymers and supermolecules, and dendrimers and biomolecules are commonly used supports that can well stabilize metal nanoclusters and meanwhile maintain their catalytic activity. Furthermore, the interactions between them would impact the catalytic processes of metal nanoclusters, thus endowing them unique catalytic selectivity. In this chapter, we introduce five materials, immobilized metal nanoclusters, and their catalytic performance with representative reports as examples.