Metal Nanoparticles on Molecularly Modified Surfaces and Their Application in Catalysis

The development and understanding of catalytic systems composed of metal nanoparticles (MNPs) on molecularly modified surfaces (MMSs) have attracted tremendous attention in the field of materials chemistry in recent years, especially for applications in catalysis where it opened a conceptually new strategy for the design of multifunctional catalysts (MNPs@MMSs) with tailor-made reactivity. MNPs@MMSs are hybrid materials assembled through judicious associations of supports, molecular modifiers, and MNPs, using a combination of molecular (“homogeneous”) and material (“heterogeneous”) approaches. These complex yet fascinating materials have shown great potential in catalysis, where the synergistic interactions between MNPs@MMSs components provide important benefits including for example enhanced catalytic performance (e.g., activity, selectivity) and improved life-time. Thus, MNPs@MMSs stimulate interdisciplinary research activities involving organometallic chemistry, material science, synthetic organic chemistry, and catalysis. This chapter presents a non-exhaustive overview of the various methods available to prepare and characterize MNPs@MMSs materials, and provides selected examples of the application of MNPs@MMSs to a wide range of catalytic transformations including reduction, oxidation, and coupling reactions.