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Chemistry

Precious little catalyst

In gold catalysis, less is more. Bulk gold is an inert metal, but tiny particles containing as few as 55 gold atoms are effective at catalysing the targeted oxidation of hydrocarbons.

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Figure 1: Fruits of gold.

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Wayne Goodman, D. Precious little catalyst. Nature 454, 948–949 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454948a

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