Some fundamental concepts of catalysis are not fully explained but are of paramount importance for the development of improved catalysts. An example is the concept of structure-insensitive reactions, where surface-normalized activity does not change with catalyst metal particle size. Here we explore this concept and its relation to surface reconstruction on a set of silica-supported Ni metal nanoparticles (mean particle sizes 1–6 nm) by spectroscopically discerning a structure sensitive (CO2 hydrogenation) from a structure insensitive (ethene hydrogenation) reaction. Using state-of-the-art techniques, inter alia in-situ STEM, and quick-X-ray absorption spectroscopy with sub-second time resolution, we have observed particle-size-dependent effects like restructuring which increases with increasing particle size, and faster restructuring for larger particle sizes during ethene hydrogenation while for CO2 no such restructuring effects were observed. Furthermore, a degree of restructuring is irreversible, and we also show that the rate of carbon diffusion on, and into nanoparticles increases with particle size. We finally show that these particle size-dependent effects induced by ethene hydrogenation, can make a structure-sensitive reaction (CO2 hydrogenation), structure insensitive. We thus postulate that structure-insensitive reactions are actually apparently structure-insensitive, which changes our fundamental understanding of the empirical observation of structure insensitivity.

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27474-3

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