Gold came under the spotlight when its nanoparticles were found to catalyze the oxidation of carbon monoxide and hydrochlorination of ethylene in the 1980s. Since then, the use of Au in catalysis has found a wide range of applications such as the oxidation of alcohols and aldehydes, epoxidation of alkenes, hydrogenation of C=C ans C=O bonds, C-C and C-N coupling reactions etc. Our group focuses on exploiting Au catalysis for environmental protections and understanding underlying mechanisms of Au catalysis by means of in situ/operando IR and Raman spectroscopy. Research topics on which we are currently working are:

(1) Air pollution control
Anthropogenic emission of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) is one of the global concerns and poses a serious threat to human health and the environment such as hotochemical smog, acid rain, ozone depletion, and fine particle pollutions. We synthesize supported Au nanoparticles activated by adding metal oxides, MO_x (M=Fe, Ce etc.) and bimetallic Au-M (M=Pt, Pd etc.) nanoparticles and test their catalytic performance of the reduction of nitric oxide by carbon monoxide.

(2) Fine chemicals synthesis
Fine chemicals synthesis is one of the challenging tasks in the field of catalysis. Our group explores environmentally-benign processes using Au catalysis for the oxidation of alcohols and amines, C=C and C=N coupling reactions.

(3) Wastewater treatment
Industrial waste in rivers and lakes pose a serious threat to the ecosystem and human health. We fabricate Au catalysts that work for hydrogenation of nitrates and nitrites, ozonation and photooxidation of persistent organic compounds (POPs).

To provide fundamental insight into solid-liquid and solid-gas interfaces during heterogeneous Au catalysis, we exploit in situ/operando IR and Raman spectroscopy for monitoring "Chemical Events" under catalysis-working conditions, e.g. high pressure and high temperature. In situ IR cells that our group possesses are diffuse reflectance IR Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS), flow-through attenuated total reflection IR spectroscopy (ATR-IR), photochemical ATR-IR, high-pressure & temperature ATR-IR and electrochemical ATR-IR. These cells are utilized to investigate Au-catalyzed reactions descrived above.