Chapter 16. Properties, Synthesis and Applications of Highly Dispersed Metal Oxide Catalysts

Summary

Nano-scale metal oxides represent an important class of material, owing to their chemical and physical properties as well as their potential widespread applications. While a great deal of knowledge about these materials has developed during recent years, an atomic/molecular level understanding of the materials, their chemistry and their preparation will greatly impact their future. Metal oxides display a wide range of properties, from metallic to semiconductor to insulator. Owing to the compositional variability and their more localized electronic structures compared to metals, the presence of defects (such as corners, kinks, steps and coordinatively unsaturated sites) play a very important role in oxide surface chemistry and hence in catalysis. This chapter presents an overview of structures, properties, synthetic methods and applications in catalysis for highly dispersed metal oxides, with special attention given to recent developments in nano-scale metal oxides.