R. Jürgen Behm

1 Introduction The reduction of carbon dioxide to methane or other C1 molecules using “green hydrogen”, i.e., hydrogen produced via electrolysis of water with electric energy from renewable sources, has attracted increasing interest as a promising route for massive energy storage in renewable energy concepts (chemical energy storage)[1-4] or, alternatively, as first step for the synthesis of hydrocarbon based fuels (solar fuels) or chemicals.[5-7] Equally important, methane and other C1...

1. Introduction Click to copy section linkSection link copied! Supported metal catalysts, consisting of metal nanoparticles (NPs) of a few nm in diameter supported on high-surface-area materials, mostly oxides, play a key role in heterogeneous catalysis. (1−3) While initially, the support was assumed to be catalytically inert and mainly served to stabilize and separate the active metal , this picture changed with time.

Special Issue Published as part of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C virtual special issue “Francesc Illas and Gianfranco Pacchioni Festschrift”. 1. Introduction Click to copy section linkSection link copied! The structure, chemical composition as well as physical and chemical properties of multicomponent solid surfaces are often dominated by their (specific) surface energy and their formation energy.