Very small "window of opportunity" for generating CO oxidation-active Au(n) on TiO2.

Recent research in heterogeneous catalysis, especially on size-selected model systems under UHV conditions and also in realistic catalytic environments, has proved that it is necessary to think in terms of the exact number of atoms when it comes to catalyst design. This is of utmost importance if the amount of noble metal, gold in particular, is to be reduced for practical reactions like CO oxidation. Here it is shown that on TiO2 only Au6 and Au7 clusters are active for CO oxidation which holds for the single crystal, thin films, and titania clusters deposited on HOPG. Size-selected cluster deposition and TPD methods have been employed to investigate the CO oxidation activity of Aun/TiO2 systems which are compared to recent results reported by Lee et al. to form a consistent picture in which only two species can be regarded as "active". The efficiency of investigated Aun/(TiO2)93/HOPG composite materials is attributed to carbon-assisted oxygen spillover from gold to support particles and across grain boundaries.

Preparation of regular arrays of bimetallic clusters with independent control of size and chemical composition.

Regular arrays of bimetallic clusters have been prepared by atomic deposition, under UHV, on a nanostructured ultrathin alumina film. The alumina films are obtained by oxidation at 1000 K of a Ni3Al (111) surface. They present two regular hexagonal superstructures with lattice parameters of 2.4 and 4.1 nm. Pd clusters nucleate exclusively on the 4.1 nm superstructure forming regular arrays of clusters extending on the whole (1 cm2) substrate. Gold deposited on a previously formed Pd clusters array, condenses exclusively on the Pd clusters in forming a regular array of bimetallic AuPd clusters with a narrow size distribution. The size and the composition of the AuPd clusters can be controlled independently. Gold clusters nucleates also on the 4.1 nm superstructure but they can escape from the nucleation sites and coalesce with other gold clusters. By condensing Pd on the preformed Au clusters, PdAu clusters are formed together with pure Pd clusters nucleated on the free sites of the 4.1 nm superstructure of the alumina film.

Surface-attached PDMAA-GRGDSP hybrid polymer monolayers that promote the adhesion of living cells.

Peptide-polymer hybrid molecules are being introduced, where one part of the molecule (i.e., the peptide) promotes the adhesion of living cells, whereas the other part of the molecule (i.e., the synthetic polymer) is known to prevent cell adhesion. The hybrid copolymer, poly(dimethylacrylamide) (PDMAA)-glycine-arginine-glycine-aspartic acid-serine-proline (GRGDSP) was synthesized by first preparing an initiator-modified peptide and in a second step growing the PDMAA block directly off the peptide through atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The PDMAA block length can be varied by adjusting appropriate polymerization conditions, thereby changing progressively the amount of the cell-repelling part of the molecule. The hybrid copolymer was further used to prepare surface-attached peptide-polymer monolayers at planar solid glass substrates through a photochemical immobilization process. By blending of the hybrid copolymer with PDMAA homopolymer (i.e., without peptide), the apparent peptide film concentration can be varied in a very simple manner. The adhesion of human skin fibroblast cells in serum-free medium was investigated as a function of the amount of peptide-polymer in the solution used for film preparation. Cells do not adhere to a pure PDMAA monolayer; however, already 0.02 wt % of peptide in the film is enough to induce cell adhesion, and 0.1 wt % promotes stress-fiber formation within adherent cells. Using lithographical means, chemically micropatterned peptide-polymer films were prepared that allow for a spatial control of the adhesion of living cells and thus they constitute a simple platform for the design of live-cell biochips.