Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Toyota Motor Corporation

David S Deutsch

Shinichi Matsumoto

Hirohito Hirata

Paul Timothy Fanson

Christopher T Williams

Michael D Amiridis

Attilio Siani

There is disclosed a process for producing a catalyst. The process includes the steps of: a) combining a dendrimer polymer and metal salt in solution forming a metal ion complex; b) exposing the metal ion complex to a reducing environment forming a dendrimer metal nanocomposite; c) depositing the dendrimer metal nanocomposite onto a catalyst support material; d) removing a solvent from the dendrimer metal nanocomposite forming metal clusters; and e) removing the dendrimer polymer forming a catalyst. Additionally, there is disclosed a catalyst having a catalytic metal deposited on a substrate. The catalytic metal is formed in clusters having a size of from 2 to 150 atoms. In another aspect, the clusters may have a spacing of from 2 to 100 nanometers between adjacent metal clusters. Further, in another aspect, the metal clusters which comprise the catalyst have a size distribution in which 70% of the clusters are within 0.6 nm of the average diameter and 99% of the particles are within 1.5 nm of the average diameter.

Supported catalysts with controlled metal cluster size

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Columbia, SC, United States of America

David S Deutsch