21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY

New gold-palladium catalysis mechanism could advance bio-based chemical manufacturing

Lehigh University researchers show how separating oxidation and reduction reactions boosts efficiency and stabilizes catalysts, opening new pathways for renewable chemical manufacturing

Lehigh University

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The building-block chemicals behind everyday products—like shampoo bottles, food containers, and kitchen spatulas—are largely derived from oil. Researchers are now working to replace those fossil-fuel-based inputs with materials sourced from renewable biological systems, a shift with implications for health, economic resilience, and national security.

These bio-sourced molecules begin as renewable feedstocks such as plants and algae. 

“Through a series of chemical steps, these molecules can be transformed into platform chemicals that industry uses to make a wide range of products,” says Steven McIntosh, Zisman Family Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University.

But many of those reaction pathways remain poorly understood. In a paper recently published in Nature Catalysis, McIntosh and his collaborators report findings that advance understanding of how these transformations occur and how they might be made more efficient. The study’s co-authors include Bohyeon Kim, a PhD student advised by McIntosh, as well as Cardiff University (Wales) researchers Dr. Graham Hutchings, Dr. Samuel Pattisson, and PhD student James Spragg.

Gold-palladium interaction reveals new catalytic behavior

At the center of the work is a newly observed interaction between two common catalyst metals: gold and palladium.

Building on earlier work, the team examined how gold and palladium interact when used together as catalyst particles. They found that the two metals couple through an electrochemical mechanism, altering each other’s behavior in ways that change how reactions proceed. 

“Every reaction consists of two half-reactions, oxidation and reduction,” says McIntosh. “In conventional catalytic reactions, both occur on the same catalytic particle. But in our design we couple separate gold and palladium nanoparticles, forcing those reactions separate, and making  the overall system more efficient.”

In effect, the pairing creates a nanoscale electrochemical reactor, increasing reactivity so that more molecules can react per second at a given temperature.

Separating reactions improves efficiency in catalyst systems

“If you want to scale a chemical process to produce platform chemicals, it has to be as efficient as possible,” he says. “That means maximizing reaction rates while minimizing energy input and the use of expensive catalysts.”  

The team also showed that this coupling stabilizes the palladium. Under typical reaction conditions, palladium would dissolve. In the presence of gold, however, it remains in a metallic state.

“Through this electrochemical crosstalk between the metals, we’re not only increasing reaction rates, but also stabilizing the system,” he says. “That allows the catalysts to operate under conditions they normally couldn’t, and it’s the first time this has been shown.”

The researchers also found that this stability breaks down under highly alkaline conditions. While gold continues to drive the oxidation reaction, palladium begins cycling between dissolved and metallic states, a process called homogeneous and heterogeneous coupling.

“This cycling becomes part of the reaction itself,” he says. “We’ve effectively enabled an entirely new reaction mechanism that hasn’t been previously observed.”

New mechanism expands possibilities for catalyst design

Ultimately, the work points toward the development of more effective catalysts, and, in time, more practical approaches for producing bio-based chemicals at scale. For now, the findings offer something more foundational: a new framework that could reshape how catalysis researchers think about these reactions.

“We’re driven by innovation in basic science,” says McIntosh. “This is one of the most fundamental projects I’ve worked on, providing a foundation for further innovation in this space and future application”

Together, the findings suggest that even well-studied catalytic systems may behave in fundamentally different ways than previously understood, which opens the door to new strategies for designing more efficient chemical processes.

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Journal

Nature Catalysis

DOI

10.1038/s41929-026-01547-2 

Article Title

The pH-dependant stabilization and interphase coupling of Pd species during alcohol oxidation

Article Publication Date

4-Jun-2026

21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY

How does gold keep its glitter? Tulane University researchers uncover why it resists tarnish

Tulane University

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Gold has been prized for thousands of years for its enduring shine, but Tulane University researchers have discovered that gold’s resistance to tarnishing depends on more than its chemistry. 

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers found that atoms on certain gold surfaces naturally rearrange themselves into protective patterns that dramatically suppress reactions with oxygen.

The discovery helps explain why gold jewelry and other gold objects can remain untarnished for centuries — and could also point the way toward designing more effective gold-based catalysts for industrial and energy-related applications.

“People have generally thought gold doesn’t tarnish simply because it doesn’t interact strongly with oxygen,” said Matthew Montemore, associate professor in Chemical Engineering in Tulane’s School of Science and Engineering. “What we show is that for two of the most common gold surface types, the surface atoms actually rearrange themselves in a way that makes the gold much more resistant to oxidation.”

Using computer simulations that predict how atoms and electrons behave, Montemore and co-author Santu Biswas, postdoctoral fellow in Tulane’s Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, studied how oxygen molecules interact with two common gold surface structures. They found that without this atomic rearrangement, oxygen molecules could break apart and react with gold much more easily.

Instead, the rearranged surfaces suppress oxygen reactions by a factor of a billion to a trillion, essentially creating a protective atomic-scale barrier that helps gold stay shiny indefinitely.

The findings offer a new explanation for one of gold’s best-known properties while also opening the door to potential advances in catalysis.

Gold-based catalysts — materials that help speed chemical reactions — are already used in some industrial oxidation reactions. But gold’s natural resistance to breaking apart oxygen molecules, the same trait that makes it attractive for jewelry and electronics, can also limit its usefulness in chemical manufacturing and energy applications.

Gold-palladium catalysts are used to make vinyl acetate, a chemical building block for many plastics and other materials. Researchers are also studying gold catalysts for uses such as cleaning up carbon monoxide in car exhaust and making propylene oxide, an important industrial chemical.

“If you can trick gold into dissociating oxygen, it can actually become a very effective catalyst for certain reactions,” Montemore said. “Our work suggests a new strategy for potentially doing that by preventing or reversing these surface rearrangements.”

Researchers have traditionally tried to improve gold catalysts by combining gold with other metals or using tiny gold nanoparticles on oxide surfaces. The new findings suggest surface geometry itself may provide another route to enhancing gold’s catalytic activity. 

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Journal

Physical Review Letters

DOI

10.1103/g3bc-t1qv 

Article Title

Role of reconstruction in the inertness of gold toward oxygen

Article Publication Date

21-May-2026

21ST CENTURY ALCHEMY

Redesigning metals at the atomic level to boost future technology

Discovery could help make electronics faster and more energy efficient

University of Minnesota

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Seung Gyo Jeong (left) and senior author Bharat Jalan (right) have created a new path toward tunable catalysis and electronics in this latest paper. 

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Credit: Kalie Pluchel, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (04/27/2026) — Researchers in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have discovered a powerful new way to control the electronic behavior of a metal—by manipulating the atomic properties of materials where they meet.

The study, published in Nature Communications, demonstrates that interfacial polarization can tune the surface work function of metallic ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) by more than 1 electron volt (eV)—a tiny amount of energy—simply by adjusting film thickness at the nanometer scale.

“We often think of polarization as something that belongs to insulators or ferroelectrics—not metals,” said Bharat Jalan, professor and Shell Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. “Our work shows that, through careful interface design, you can stabilize polarization in a metallic system and use it as a knob to tune electronic properties. This opens an entirely new way of thinking about controlling metals.”

This specific change is most powerful when the metal layer is about 4 nanometers thick—roughly the width of a single strand of DNA. At this precise size, the metal shifts from being "stretched" by the material underneath it to a more "relaxed" state. This transition proves that the physical way atoms are packed together has a direct, measurable impact on how the metal handles electricity.

“This was surprising,” said Seung Gyo Jeong, first author of the study and a researcher in Jalan’s group. “We expected subtle interface effects, but not such a large and controllable change in work function. Being able to visualize the polar displacements at the atomic scale and connect them directly to electronic measurements was especially exciting.”

Beyond fundamental physics, the findings could impact the design of next-generation electronic, catalytic and quantum devices. 

In addition to Jalan and Low, the research team included members from Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, Gwangyu Institute of Science and Technology and the School of Physics at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. 

Learn more:

• Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science website
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering website

Read the full paper entitled, “Strain-Stabilized Interfacial Polarization Tunes Work Function Over 1 eV in RuO2/TiO2 Heterostructures,” on the Nature Communications website. 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-69200-x 

Article Title

Strain-stabilized interfacial polarization tunes work function over 1 eV in RuO2/TiO2 heterostructures

 

21st Century Common Sense, Part One

by Ted Glick / February 18th, 2026

A quarter of the way through this century, there is no doubt that the USA and the world are in deep trouble. This is true for everyone, even the families of those most responsible for this state of affairs, the “Epstein class” and those supporting them. Given the fact that the burning of fossils fuels and nukes, the continued reliance on destructive war as a way of determining who runs individual countries, and the growing disparity between the billionaire/multi-multi-millionaire (MMM) class and those who must work for a living, often barely making it—these and related injustices are what must be transcended, must be overcome, asap. The future of the world literally depends upon whether we can transcend them over the coming years.

For us in the United States of America, the immediate issue is the Trumpfascist efforts to impose dictatorial rule to the benefit of the billionaire class and those MMM’s hoping to become billionaires. As of the time of this writing a key next step in the resistance to these efforts is the November, 2026 federal elections, which should result in the Democrats, aligned with progressive Independents like Bernie Sanders, winning control of at least the House of Representatives, as things now appear is very likely.

But even if they take the House and Senate, and even if the percentage of House and Senate members who are strong and consistent progressives grows significantly, this alone will not yield the kind of changes the world desperately needs. For one thing, would-be dictator Trump will still be President, able to use his White House power in destructive ways, like unnecessary and brutal wars, rising economic, racial, gender and other inequality and hateful discrimination, and major attacks on wind, solar and electric vehicles.

A huge problem, up there at the top of the list, is that the history of efforts over the last many centuries to create truly just and democratic societies, run by organized people, not oligarchs, has at best yielded mixed results since the Russian Revolution of 1917.

In a book I wrote and self-published in 2021, five years ago, here is what I put forward as the key aspect of a “winning strategy, the one that is the key link to the social transformation process so urgently needed: the building and deepening of a way of working together and developing organizations that is collaborative, respectful, democratic its core and which, as a result, is truly transformative, built to last.”¹

This has to be our starting point as we try to determine how we change the world. Also necessary is an understanding of the urgency of the climate crisis. More than any other issue, this is one which must always be seen as a top priority. The amount of damage already done and sure to be done in the future, particularly to low-income people, the vast majority of the world’s population, primarily people of color, cannot be underestimated. We are literally running out of time to transition away from fossil fuels and to be about much more community-building and collaborative approaches to solving problems as they escalate as ecosystems, food and water supplies become increasingly less dependable.

Indeed, this existential reality for the entire planet is a reason that change is not just necessary, not just possible, but very much on the agenda of humankind.

As stated by the late Father Paul Mayer, “What history is calling for is nothing less than the creation of a new human being. We must literally reinvent ourselves through the alchemy of the Spirit”—or however one describes that unseen, powerful force in the universe which, down through history, has inspired people to do things which seem impossible—“or perish. We are being divinely summoned to climb another rung on the evolutionary ladder, to another level of human consciousness.”²

To be frank, it is not enough to be against Donald Trump and MAGA, or against the control of both major parties in the USA, the Democrats and the Republicans, or even to be committed to hard work for the next eight and a half months here in the USA to defeat the billionaire-supporting, fascist President Donald Trump. Our problems are too deep to accept this essential next step as the ultimate goal. Short-term, essential goal yes, but looking at things historically, it can only be the first major step in a fundamental, revolutionary process that over time not just saves the planet and its people but, at long last, matches our desires as a species with the way that we organize ourselves, economically, politically, culturally and socially.

ENDNOTES:

• 1
  21st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation, p. 22
• 2
  Paul Mayer, Wrestling with Angels” back cover

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Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org. Read other articles by Ted, or visit Ted's website.

POSTMODERN ALCHEMY

Simulations and experiments meet: Machine learning predicts the structures of gold nanoclusters

University of Jyväskylä - Jyväskylän yliopisto

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Atomistic snapshots describing how two thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters of 144 gold atoms each coalesce producing a single larger cluster matching a size that previously has been synthesized. 

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Credit: Maryam Sabooni Asre Hazer, University of Jyväskylä.

Researchers at University of Jyväskylä (Finland) advance understanding of gold nanocluster behavior at elevated temperatures using machine learning-based simulations. This information is crucial in the design of nanomaterials so that their properties can be modified for use in catalysis and other technological applications.

Thiolate protected gold nanoclusters are hybrid nanomaterials with promising applications in nanomedicine, bioimaging and catalysis. However, understanding how these nanoclusters behave under elevated temperatures, which is critical for their use, has remained largely unexplored due to the prohibitive computational cost of traditional simulation methods. 

Record-long simulations of gold nanoclusters

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä have successfully employed machine learning-driven simulations to investigate the thermal dynamics of Au₁₄₄(SR)₆₀, one of the most well-studied gold nanoclusters. Using a recently developed atomic cluster expansion (ACE) potential trained on extensive density functional theory data, the researchers conducted molecular dynamics simulations extending up to 0.12 microseconds. This is approximately five orders of magnitude longer than what is feasible with conventional quantum chemical methods.

"This work opens new possibilities for understanding how ligand-protected metal nanoclusters behave under realistic operating conditions," says lead author Dr. Maryam Sabooni Asre Hazer. "Through this work, we can observe in atomistic detail how these clusters transform, fragment, and even merge at elevated temperatures over timescales that are relevant for experimental conditions."

Layer-by-layer thermal transformations revealed

The study revealed that thermal effects induce structural changes in a layer-by-layer fashion, starting from the outermost gold-thiolate protective shell. At temperatures between 300 and 550 K, the researchers observed the spontaneous formation of polymer-like chains and ring structures of gold-thiolate units, which can dynamically detach and reattach to the cluster surface. The remaining cluster compositions closely matched those observed in experimental studies, demonstrating the accuracy of the machine learning potential.

"What's particularly exciting is that we can now see how gold atoms migrate between different layers of the cluster and how the surface restructures under thermal stress," explains Dr. Sabooni Asre Hazer. "These processes are directly relevant to understanding why thermally treated gold nanoclusters become effective catalysts."

Gold clusters joined together in the simulation

In an even more remarkable finding, the researchers successfully simulated the complete coalescence of two Au₁₄₄(SR)₆₀ clusters at 550 K. The fusion process produced a larger cluster with composition Au₂₃₉(SR)₆₉, strikingly similar to a gold nanocluster previously synthesized experimentally. 

"The merged cluster exhibited a twinned face-centered cubic metal core structure, matching the symmetry determined from experimental X-ray diffraction data," says Dr. Sabooni Asre Hazer.

Opening new avenues for nanomaterials research

The methodology enables detailed atomistic studies of processes that were previously inaccessible to computational investigation, including cluster-cluster interactions, catalytic activation mechanisms, thermal stability, and inter-particle reactions.

"Our results provide fundamental insights into how ligand-protected nanoclusters behave as they transition toward larger nanoparticles," explains Professor Hannu Häkkinen, who supervised the research. "This knowledge is instrumental for the rational design of nanomaterials with tailored functionalities for catalysis and other applications.", he continues. 

The research was published in Nature Communications. The publication was recognized as an Editors' Highlight in the Inorganic and Physical Chemistry section of Nature Communications.

The work was supported by the Research Council of Finland and the European Research Council (ERC) through the Advanced Grant project DYNANOINT. Computational resources on supercomputers Puhti and Mahti were provided by the Finnish national supercomputing center CSC. 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-67700-w 

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Thermal dynamics and coalescence of Au144(SR)60 clusters from a machine-learned potential

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