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Catalysts at the Nanoscale

During times of war, technology tends to develop at an accelerated pace. World War II was no exception. Using newly invented incendiary devices, Army Rangers from D company of the 2 nd Battalion disabled five 155mm guns aimed at the US fleet off of Utah Beach during the invasion of Normandy. These thermite grenades silently fused the guns' elevating and traversing mechanisms by burning at 3000 o C. Now, over 60 years later, thermites are receiving a facelift with the help of nanotechnology. And while the military is keenly interested in nanotechnology, hundreds of other organizations are seeking various applications within the nascent field. The exciting prospect of nanotechnology is its potential use in almost any conceivable domain. Every field from medicine and electronics to manufacturing and fashion stand to benefit from advances in nanotechnology. And while nano-scale technology is multifaceted in its application, the use of nanocrystals as catalysts is perhaps the most intriguing. In order to understand why nanocrystal catalysts are so promising, one first needs to understand some basic principles of Chemistry. For any chemical reaction to occur, two reactive species must come in contact with each other. The term reactive does not imply unstable; wood is relatively inert unless it is heated. However, if it is warmed to approximately 451 o Fahrenheit, the hydrogen and carbon composition of the wood reacts with oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide and water. While this paper will not address how or why this reaction occurs, it is important to understand that it will cease if the reactive species are not in close proximity to each other. Fire will never originate in the core of burning logs because oxygen is not able to penetrate far beyond the surface. Anyone who has built a campfire knows that the fire only burns on the wood's exterior. Another key concept to understanding nanocrystal catalysis involves the ratio of surface area and volume. As an object gets larger, its surface area increases less in relation to its volume. A good way to visualize this is to imagine a cube (Figure 1). Volume is measured by multiplying the cube's length, width, and height. Surface area is determined by finding the area of one face of the cube (length times height) and multiplying it by the number of faces: in this case, six.