New routes for the construction of strong metal–support interactions

Supported metal nanoparticle catalysts play an important role in a series of industrially important reactions for fuel production, fine chemical synthesis, pollutant removal, and solar harvesting. However, the metal NPs tend to sinter and/or leach under harsh reaction conditions causing the catalyst deactivation, especially for the metals with low Tammann temperature (e.g., Au, Cu). The regeneration of the deactivated catalysts is a complex and costly process; therefore, the stabilization of the metal species against sintering and leaching is extremely important.