Creation of Novel Solid-Solution Alloy Nanoparticles on the Basis of Density-of-States Engineering by Interelement Fusion.

Currently 118 known elements are represented in the periodic table. Of these 118 elements, only about 80 elements are stable, nonradioactive, and widely available for our society. From the viewpoint of the "elements strategy", we need to make full use of the 80 elements to bring out their latent ability and create innovative materials. Furthermore, there is a strong demand that the use of rare or toxic elements be reduced or replaced while their important properties are retained. Advanced science and technology could create higher-performance materials even while replacing or reducing minor or harmful elements through the combination of more abundant elements. The properties of elements are correlated directly with their electronic states. In a solid, the magnitude of the density of states (DOS) at the Fermi level affects the physical and chemical properties. In the present age, more attention has been paid to improving the properties of materials by means of alloying elements. In particular, the solid-solution-type alloy is advantageous because the properties can be continuously controlled by tuning the compositions and/or combinations of the constituent elements. However, the majority of bulk alloys are of the phase-separated type under ambient conditions, where constituent elements are immiscible with each other. To overcome the challenge of the bulk-phase metallurgical aspects, we have focused on the nanosize effect and developed methods involving "nonequilibrium synthesis" or "a process of hydrogen absorption/desorption". We propose a new concept of "density-of-states engineering" for the design of materials having the most desirable and suitable properties by means of "interelement fusion". In this Account, we describe novel solid-solution alloys of Pd-Pt, Ag-Rh, and Pd-Ru systems in which the constituent elements are immiscible in the bulk state. The homogeneous solid-solution alloys of Pd and Pt were created from Pd core/Pt shell nanoparticles using a hydrogen absorption/desorption process as a trigger. Several atom percent replacements of Pd with Pt atoms resulted in a significantly enhanced hydrogen absorption capacity compared with Pd nanoparticles. AgxRh1-x and PdxRu1-x solid-solution alloy nanoparticles were also developed by nonequilibrium synthesis based on a polyol method. The AgxRh1-x nanoparticles demonstrated hydrogen storage properties, although pure metal nanoparticles of each constituent element do not adsorb hydrogen. AgxRh1-x is therefore considered to possess a similar electronic structure to Pd as a synthetic pseudo-palladium. The PdxRu1-x nanoparticles showed enhanced catalytic activity for CO oxidation, with the highest catalytic activity found using the equimolar Pd0.5Ru0.5 nanoparticles. The catalytic activity of the Pd0.5Ru0.5 nanoparticles exceeds that of the widely used and best-performing Ru catalysts for CO oxidation and is also higher than that of neighboring Rh on the periodic table. Our present work provides a guiding principle for the design of a suitable DOS shape according to the intended physical and/or chemical properties and a method for the development of novel solid-solution alloys.