A Career in Catalysis: Masatake Haruta

Professor Masatake Haruta's distinguished scientific achievements are highlighted in heterogeneous catalysis by gold (Au). In 1982, he discovered that Au became highly active for CO oxidation even at 200 K when gold was deposited as nanoparticles (NPs) smaller than 5 nm on 3d transition metal oxides. After this finding, he and his co-workers have developed many preparation methods for the deposition of Au as NPs and clusters onto a wide variety of supports. By kinetic, theoretical, and surface science studies, Haruta and co-workers revealed interesting catalytic features of Au, including reaction mechanisms which are greatly different from those of Pd and Pt. Haruta and co-workers also found that supported Au NPs catalyzed direct oxidation of propylene to propylene oxide using O-2 and H-2, and subsequently O-2 alone in the presence of H2O.