Dopants adsorbed as single atoms prevent degradation of catalysts

Bell, A.T. The impact of nanoscience on heterogeneous catalysis. Science 299, 1688–1691 (2003).

Satterfield, C.N. Heterogeneous Catalysis in Practice (McGraw Hill, New York, 1980).

Knozinger, H. & Ratnasamy, P. Catalytic aluminas – surface models and characterization of the surface sites. Catal. Rev. Sci. Eng. 17, 31–69 (1978).

Gates, B.C. Supported metal clusters: synthesis, structure, and catalysis. Chem. Rev. 95, 511–522 (1995).

Xu, Z. et al. Size-dependent catalytic activity of supported metal clusters. Nature 372, 346–8 (1994).

Lin, V.S.Y. et al. Oxidative polymerization of 1,4-diethynylbenzene into highly conjugated poly(phenylene butadiynylene) within the channels of surface-functionalized mesoporous silica and alumina materials. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124, 9040–9041 (2002).

Wefers, K. & Misra, C. Oxides and hydroxides of aluminum. (Alcoa Technical Paper No.19, Alcoa Laboratories, Pittsburgh, 1987).

Arai, H. & Machida, M. Thermal stabilization of catalyst supports and their application to high-temperature catalytic combustion. Appl. Catal. A 138, 161–176 (1996).

Church, J.S., Cant, N.W. & Trimm, D.L. Surface area stability and characterization of a novel sulfate-based alumina modified by rare earth and alkaline earth ions. Appl. Catal. A 107, 267–276 (1994).

Glazov, M.V., Novak, J. & Hector, L.G. Stabilization of γ-alumina: how much lanthanum do we actually need? (Alcoa Technical Paper No. 99–168, Alcoa Technical Center, Pittsburgh, 1999).

Kumar, K.-N.P., Tranto, J., Kumar, J. & Engell, J.E. Pore-structure stability and phase transformation in pure and M-doped (M = La, Ce, Nd, Gd, Cu, Fe) alumina membranes and catalyst supports. J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 15, 266–270 (1996).

Oudet, F., Courtine, P. & Vieux, A. Thermal stabilization of transition alumina by structural coherence with lanthanide aluminum oxide (LnAlO3, Ln = lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium). J. Catal. 114, 112–120 (1988).

Beguin, B., Garbowski, E. & Primet, M. Stabilization of alumina by addition of lanthanum. Appl. Catal. 75, 119–132 (1991).

Vazquez, A. et al. X-ray diffraction, FTIR, and NMR characterization of sol–gel alumina doped with lanthanum and cerium. J. Solid State Chem. 128, 161–168 (1997).

Yamamoto, T., Tanaka, T., Matsuyama, T., Funabiki, T. & Yoshida, S. Structural analysis of La/Al2O3 catalysts by La K-edge XAFS. J. Synchrotron Rad. 8, 634–636 (2001).

Batson, P.E., Dellby, N. & Krivanek, O.L. Sub-ångstrom resolution using aberration corrected electron optics. Nature 418, 617–620 (2002).

Blonski, S. & Garofalini, S.H. Molecular dynamics simulations of γ-alumina and α-alumina surfaces. Surf. Sci. 295, 263–274 (1993).

Sohlberg, K., Pennycook, S.J. & Pantelides, S.T. Explanation of the observed dearth of three-coordinated Al on γ-alumina surfaces. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121, 10999–11001 (1999).

Pennycook, S.J. & Jesson, D.E. High-resolution incoherent imaging of crystals. Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 938–941 (1990).

Kirkland, E.J. Advanced Computing in Electron Microscopy (Plenum, New York, 1998).

Shannon, R.D. Revised effective ionic radii and systematic studies of interatomic distances in halides and chalcogenides. Acta Cryst. A 32, 751–767 (1976).

Burtin, P., Brunelle, J.P., Pijolat, M. & Soustelle, M. Influence of surface area and additives on the thermal stability of transition alumina catalyst supports. I. Kinetic data. Appl. Catal. 34, 225–238 (1987).

Rashkeev, S.N. et al. Transition metal atoms on different alumina phases: The role of subsurface sites on catalytic activity. Phys. Rev. B 67, 115414 (2003).

Krivanek, O.L., Dellby, N. & Lupini, A.R. Towards sub-Å electron beams. Ultramicroscopy 78, 1–11 (1999).

Kresse, G. & Furthmüller, J. Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set. Comput. Mater. Sci. 6, 15–50 (1996).

Perdew, J.P. Density-functional approximation for the correlation energy of the inhomogeneous electron gas. Phys. Rev. B 33, 8822–8824 (1986).

Becke, A.D. Density-functional exchange-energy approximation with correct asymptotic behavior. Phys. Rev. A 38, 3098–3100 (1988).

Vanderbilt, D. Soft self-consistent pseudopotentials in a generalized eigenvalue formalism. Phys. Rev. B 41, 7892–7895 (1990).

Blöchl, P.E. Projector augmented-wave method. Phys. Rev. B 50, 17953–17979 (1994).

Kresse, G. & Joubert, D. From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method. Phys. Rev. B 59, 1758–1775 (1999).