| TECHNOLOGY |
Meanwhile, at the University of Tokyo, catalyst immobilization and very low catalyst loadings converge in the work of chemistry professor Shu Kobayashi on immobilization technology called polymer incarceration. Here, the metal is first encapsulated in a polymer. Then the microcapsules are cross-linked. Kobayashi has shown that incarcerated palladium is highly active in hydrogenation and suggests that it could also work with Suzuki couplings and other palladium-catalyzed reactions. Kobayashi says the high activity is due to small clusters of palladium atoms inside the polymer. "Now there is a movement to synthesize palladium nanoclusters. The smallest so far measures 1 nm," he says. "We have seen subnanometer clusters, containing only seven atoms." |
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