Nanoporous Gold Catalysts for Selective Gas-Phase Oxidative Coupling of Methanol at Low Temperature

Abstract

Methanol Coupling Catalyzed with Gold: Gold surfaces can be effective catalysts for partial oxidation reactions, in part because lower interaction strengths of molecules absorbed on gold allow products to desorb before further unwanted oxidations occur. One challenge in these reactions is the low rate of formation of reactive atomic surface oxygen. Wittstock et al. (p. 319 ; see the Perspective by Christensen and Nørskov ) created high–surface area gold catalysts by leaching silver from gold-silver alloys. This material proved to be an effective catalyst for partial oxidative coupling of methanol, yielding methyl formate. Residual silver appears to play a key role in activating the dissociation of molecular oxygen.