Materials Today  Volume 19, Number 1  January/February 2016

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RESEARCH: Review

Catalytic nanoarchitectonics for

environmentally compatible energy
generation
Hideki Abe1,*, Jia Liu2 and Katsuhiko Ariga2,*
1
2

Environmental Remediation Materials Unit, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan
WPI Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan

Environmentally compatible energy management is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Lowtemperature conversion of chemical to electrical energy is of particular importance to minimize the impact
to the environment while sustaining the consumptive economy. In this review, we shed light on one of the
most versatile energy-conversion technologies: heterogeneous catalysts. We establish the integrity of
structural tailoring in heterogeneous catalysts at different scales in the context of an emerging paradigm in
materials science: catalytic nanoarchitectonics. Fundamental backgrounds of energy-conversion catalysis
are first provided together with a perspective through state-of-the-art energy-conversion catalysis
including catalytic exhaust remediation, fuel-cell electrocatalysis and photosynthesis of solar fuels.
Finally, the future evolution of catalytic nanoarchitectonics is overviewed: possible combinations of
heterogeneous catalysts, organic molecules and even enzymes to realize reaction-selective, highly efficient
and long-life energy conversion technologies which will meet the challenge we face.
Introduction
Since the industrial revolution in the 18th century, we have been
pursuing technologies to produce food and energy for daily life.
Looking back through the 20th century, there emerged two groundbreaking technologies which have enabled the vast growth of
human activity in terms of population and economy: the massproduction of fertilizer from nitrogen in air (the Haber-Bosch (HB)
process) and energy-generation by combustion systems. Currently,
the worlds annual demand for fertilizer is industrially manufactured through the HB process [1]. Most transportation, such as
aircrafts, cars and ships, are powered by combustion systems including gasoline and/or diesel engines, and moreover, 70% of the
worlds electricity demand is supplied by fossil-fuel power plants [2].
These traditional energy-conversion technologies are strongly
related to an elemental technology controlling chemical reactions
on demand: catalysis. The rate-determining reaction of the HB
process, N2 + 3H2 to 2NH3, is an uphill reaction which goes forward
only in the presence of iron-oxide catalysts [1]. Combustion systems

*Corresponding authors: Abe, H. (ABE.Hideki@nims.go.jp),

Ariga, K. (ARIGA.Katsuhiko@nims.go.jp)

12

are always equipped with exhaust-remediation catalysts comprising

precious-group metals (PGMs) which remediate the toxic exhaust at
much lower temperatures than the combustion temperature of fuels
[3,4].
To maximize the energy efficiency and minimize the materials
cost, huge effort has been expended to tailor the structure of
catalysts. In particular, exhaust-remediation catalysts (Fig. 1(a)
and (b)) have experienced generations of development to meet
the harsh catalytic conditions in exhaust: extremely large spaceto-volume ratio (SV > 10,000 s 1) of the reactant gas and high
temperatures often exceeding 1000 8C [35].
The development of exhaust-remediation catalysts has been
based on structure tailoring of the material at different scales. First,
the exhaust catalysts are shaped as a co-axial filter with narrow
channels to minimize the turbulent flows which strongly inhibit
mass transport (Fig. 1(c)) [4]. The usual channel size is of the order of
1000 to 100 mm where the Reynolds number is smaller than the
turbulent-flow limit, 2200 [6]. In some cases, the channels are
designed such that the exhaust repeatedly circulates through the
channel to increase the retention time and promote sluggish remediation of burn-resistant particulate matter (PM25) [5].

1369-7021/ 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.mattod.2015.08.021

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FIGURE 1

Architecture of exhaust catalysts, ranging from milli, micro and nanometers.

The channel surface of catalysts is further coated with porous

layers (usually called washcoats) to increase the surface area up to
0.110 m2 g 1 (Fig. 1(d)) [4]. The pore size is adjusted to the mean
free path of the molecular diffusion of the reactant gas; 10 to
0.1 mm to improve the mass transfer [6]. Finally, nanometer-sized
catalytic centers are dispersed and immobilized on the surface of
the pores to maximize the catalytic activity (Fig. 1(d)). The catalytic centers usually consist of 1000 through 10,000 atoms [3,4].
Here it is worth noting that such structural control of individual
components often provides incremental improvements in the
overall performance. In order to realize efficient exhaust remediation, the components must not only be carefully structure-tailored, but also rationally combined in an integrated way from
millimeter through nanometer levels, just like the construction
of elaborate architectures.
Several years ago, a new concept emerged in the field of materials science called nanoarchitectonics. This novel concept of
nanoarchitectonics was originally proposed by Masakazu Aono
as a new paradigm to integrally construct required material architectures by arranging at the nanoscale [7,8]. Although nanotechnology mainly utilizes individual techniques at the nanoscale,
nanoarchitectonics harmonizes mutual interactions and components to build up hyperfine structures, as architectures with nanoscale building blocks. Atomic and molecular-level manipulations,
chemical functionalization, control of self-organization and physical field-induced orientational control should be mutually combined to create new materials with the desired nanoarrangement.
This concept has recently been applied in many research categories including materials preparation [911], physicochemical fabrication [1214], and biomedical applications [1517]. For
catalytic nanoarchitectonics, we particularly focus on tailoring
the molecular composition, surface-atomic arrangement, and
microstructures for innovative catalysts.

Backgrounds: problems and requirements

Challenges for heat-energy conversion
Combustion engines extract available energy from fuels including
hydrogen, fossil fuels and/or biomass fuels, through thermo-mechanical converters operating at temperatures higher than the
ignition points of fuels in air (>400 8C). The combustion is always

accompanied by exhaust containing carbon monoxide and toxic

nitrogen oxides, NOx [3]. The exhaust causes severe impacts on
living conditions especially in emerging countries where ground
transportation is rapidly increasing [18,19].
In addition, the efficiency of such thermo-mechanical converters is always limited by the operating temperature. When the
converters work at temperatures lower than the usual heatproof
limit (<1000 8C), the efficiency is lower than 40% [20]. The unused
chemical energy, which was stored in the fuels, is irreversibly
dissipated to the environment as heat loss. This heat loss not only
degrades the fuel-to-energy efficiency and promotes the depletion
of fossil fuels, but also contributes to global warming through a
synergy effect with green-house gases contained in the exhaust,
such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) [11].
Different alternatives have been developed, including nuclear
power plants and solar power plants, yet none of these power
sources has replaced combustion engines, primarily because of the
scalability [21]. It is worth noting that even nuclear power plants
are not free from heat loss because they still rely on thermomechanical converters to extract energy from fission fuels.

Catalytic energy conversion at low temperatures

There is a possible way to reduce this unfavorable heat loss and
exhaust: energy-extraction at atmospheric temperature. NOx is
generated through the high-temperature reaction of O2 and N2
in the oxidant [3]. Heat loss occurs only at the interface of two
objects with different temperatures. When the energy-extraction is
performed at atmospheric temperature, both the NOx generation
and heat loss will be substantially suppressed. However, such
atmospheric-temperature energy-extraction is insufficient to supply the energy demands of practical machinery such as cars or
electronic devices because of sluggish fuel-oxidation at low temperatures.
To accelerate low-temperature energy-extraction from fuels, the
most versatile way is to activate the fuel molecules by promoting
the formation of chemical bonds with another catalyst molecule
which is not directly involved in the reaction. When the fuel
molecule forms chemical bonds with the catalyst molecule, the
electrons used for the chemical bonds of the fuel molecule partially move to the newly formed bonds, resulting in a weakening of
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the original bonds. The catalytically activated fuel molecules are

more readily oxidized than the free-standing molecules, even at
atmospheric temperatures.
In the case of fuel molecules being oxidized in aqueous solutions by hydroxyl anions, the counterpart catalyst is in electrical
contact with the electrodes, and the electrons can be collected
from the fuel molecules as electric current. In the inverse reaction,
for instance the reduction of oxygen molecules, is coupled with
this fuel-oxidation reaction being separated by proton-exchange
membranes or anion-exchange membranes, we obtain polymerelectrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) [2227]. PEMFCs can
extract energy from the fuel without heat loss, usually small-sized
molecules such as hydrogen, methanol or borohydrides. The
efficiency of PEMFCs is much higher than combustion engines,
and can ideally reach 80% [23].
Small-sized molecules cannot only be used as simple fuels, but as
storage media of different energies; such as photons. Sunlight is the
ultimate energy source, but is not widely available as an alternative
to fossil fuels because of the lack of appropriate media in which to
store the energy in the form of chemical energy. Photocatalytic
materials, in particular those that promote the photon-to-chemical
energy conversion under illumination of visible-range light, is one
of the most important emerging fields of catalytic research.
There have been a large number of approaches reported for both
of the different energy-conversion catalysis, which are closely
related to the catalytic nanoarchitectonics, as introduced in the
following section.

Tailoring catalysts with nanoarchitectonics

Molecular-scale tailoring: catalytic alloy nanoparticles
The catalyst should be neither involved in the targeted reaction
nor decomposed during the reaction. They are required to be stable
for the targeted reaction while they efficiently activate the fuel
molecules. To balance the mutually competing properties, activity
and stability, the catalysts for energy extraction must necessarily
be larger in size than the fuel molecules to retain the stability. The
fuel molecules are activated by electron donation or backdonation
from the catalyst surface. Such charge transfer either injects electrons to the lowest-energy anti-bonding state or removes electrons
from the highest-energy bonding state of the surface, destabilizing
the whole of the catalyst. In the event the catalyst consists of a
large number of atoms, both the anti-bonding and bonding states
form extended states, called conduction and valence bands, respectively. The conduction and valence bands are so delocalized to
dissipate the injected charge throughout the catalyst to retain the
stability of individual chemical bonds. Additionally, the large
catalyst molecule requires the same atomic environment as the
small-sized catalyst molecules to achieve the desired chemical
bonds with the fuel molecules. To meet this requirement, the
catalyst should have a periodic structure which is realized in the
solid-state, such as in metals, oxides, nitrides and calcogenides.
The solid-state compounds have extended structures in which the
constituent atoms are ordered in a space-group symmetry including the translational symmetry, unlike the fuel molecules which
are ordered in a point-group symmetry.
A large-sized cluster of solid-state compounds gains extra
stability through Madelung energy [28]. One atom in the
solid-state molecule can have overlapping integrals not only
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Materials Today  Volume 19, Number 1  January/February 2016

with the nearest-neighbor atoms but also with the second, third,
fourth and even with the nth atoms to obtain collective stabilization energy (Madelung energy). This Madelung energy is
usually minus in sign and proportional to the number of the
atoms in the cluster. When the Madelung energy is larger than
the activation energy of the catalysis, the n-membered cluster
can serve as an active and stable catalyst, called a catalytic
nanoparticle.
Note that the catalyst compounds, of which smallest is the
nanoparticle, always have a well-defined surface which is sufficiently larger than the fuel molecules. The catalytic activation of the
fuel molecules are ultimately attributed to the formation of chemical bonds between the fuel molecules and the surface of the catalyst
molecules (chemisorption). The catalytic activity can be optimized
for the targeted reaction by tuning the chemisorption strength of
the fuel molecules to the surface (Fig. 2). The chemisorption
strength is determined by the quantum overlapping between the
frontier orbital of the fuel molecule and the extended electronic
state of the catalyst surface near its Femi level. The chemisorption
strength, and eventually the catalytic activity, can therefore be
controlled by tuning the surface electronic structure of the catalyst
[2938].
One of the most effective ways to access the surface electronic
structure is alloying or solid-solution. There have been a number of
reports on the synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance
of alloy nanoparticles [3953]. The general concept of materialsdesign for alloy nanoparticles is electronic-structure tailoring
through tuning of the elemental composition of nanoparticles.
Abe and his collaborators synthesized TaPt3 nanoparticles for the first
time and demonstrated that TaPt3 exhibits much higher catalytic
activity than Pt toward the oxidation of ethanol fuels (Fig. 3) [51].
The TaPt3 nanoparticles can cleave the CC bond of the ethanol
molecules more efficiently than the state-of-the-art ethanol-oxidation catalyst, Pt3Sn alloy nanoparticles [52]. Experiments show
that the surface of the TaPt3 nanoparticles are much less susceptible than elemental Pt nanoparticles to the CO adsorption to the
surface which degrades catalytic activity due to the formation of
blocking layers on the surface (CO poisoning). Theoretical calculations have elucidated that the CO-adsorption tolerance of the
TaPt3 surface is attributed to the weak orbital overlapping between

FIGURE 2

Correlation between the chemisorption energy of the reactant and the

catalytic activity.

FIGURE 3

Oxidative CC bond cleavage of ethanol catalyzed by TaPt3 nanoparticles.

Alloying of Pt and Ta enhances catalytic activity toward the electrooxidation of ethanol fuels for fuel-cell applications.

the surface d-band of TaPt3 and the lowest unoccupied molecular

orbital (LUMO) of CO. As a result of hybridization of the Ta 5 d and
Pt 5 d orbitals, the center-of-gravity of the density of states of the
TaPt3 surface (d-band center) is lowered with respect to that of Pt.
The low d-band center of the TaPt3 catalyst results in a weak
interaction with the LUMO of CO admolecules.
Murray and his collaborators have made alloy NPs consisting of
Ni, Fe and Pt, Ni/FePt (Fig. 4) [53]. The prepared Ni/FePt NPs have a
thin (1 nm) FePt shell and are converted to Ni/Pt NPs by aceticacid treatments to de-alloy Fe. The prepared Ni/Pt coreshell NPs
exhibit significantly enhanced activity toward the oxygen-reduction reaction (ORR). The method developed to obtain alloy and/or
coreshell NPs has opened up a route to ultralow Pt content for
different catalytic reactions including the ORR.

Nanometer-scale tailoring of surface-atomic arrangements:

catalytic nano-facets
Energy extraction from fuels can proceed by different paths. Tuning
of surface electronic state is often not sufficient to selectively

RESEARCH

promote the favorable path to realize the highest energy efficiency.

The selectivity of catalysis is sensitive to the atomic arrangement on
the surface. Indeed, DiSalvo and his collaborators have demonstrated that single-crystalline PtBi can selectively promote the electrooxidation reaction of formic acid to carbon dioxide without passing
another reaction pathway involving the formation of CO [54]. It is
known that CO admolecules are strongly adsorbed atop a Pt atom
(on-site), in between two adjacent Pt atoms (bridge site) or at the
center of three neighboring Pt atoms (hollow site) (Fig. 5). The
bridge-site and/or hollow-site adsorption is unfavorable because
they are too strong and can result in the formation of surface
blocking layers. The PtPt interatomic distance on the most dense
surface of PtBi (0 0 1) is 40% larger than that of the Pt(1 1 1) surface.
The large PtPt distance on the PtBi surface makes CO admolecules
hard to take bridge-site or hollow-site configurations, improving the
catalytic performance [54].
There are a large number of papers on facet-engineering and
enhanced catalytic performance [5575]. Catalytic selectivity can
be further improved by maximizing the area of the crystal facet of a
given nanoparticle while retaining the volume. Ariga and his
collaborators have demonstrated that naturally abundant copper(II) oxide (CuO) can exhibit a better activity than Pt-nanoparticle catalysts and even rival Rh-nanoparticle catalysts toward the
reduction reaction of NO in the presence of CO when theoretically
designed and rationally prepared as interleaved nanoplates bearing the maximal active {0 0 1} facet (CuO nanoplates) (Fig. 6) [74].
CuO possesses a monoclinic crystal structure in which Cu2+
cations are coordinated by four oxygen atoms in an approximately
square planar configuration. Each low-index crystal plane or facet
of CuO has a characteristic atomic arrangement at its surface, in
turn suggesting that each crystal facet of CuO should possess
different catalytic properties. Density functional calculations indicate that the surface energy of the {0 0 1} facet (+1.70 J m 2) is
significantly higher than that of the {1 0 0} facet (+1.56 J m 2) in
turn indicating that the {0 0 1} facet is more chemically reactive.
Carbon monoxide molecules that are initially adsorbed on the
surface react at the outermost oxygen atoms. This process creates

FIGURE 4

Oxygen-reduction reaction catalyzed by Ni/PtFe nanoparticles. Ni

nanoparticles are coated with Pt-Fe alloy skin to exhibit enhanced ORR
performance.

FIGURE 5

CO poisoning of the pure platinum surface (top) and the atomic

arrangement of the PtBi(0 0 1) surface.

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for photocatalyst materials designed using two-dimensional materials with high solar-driven photocatalytic activity.

Tailoring of the microstructure: nano-cellular catalysts

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FIGURE 6

Remediation of nitrogen oxides by facet-engineered CuO.

oxygen vacancies (VO) which can act as reaction centers for the
oxygen elimination reaction of NOx. This series of chemical reactions hardly occurs on the {100} facet due to the planar geometry
of the surface, which leads to lower surface energy. According to
the computational results, CO molecules are tightly bound at the
{1 0 0} surface forming stable carbonate units (CO3), which suppresses desorption of CO2 and inhibits the creation of the reactive
centers, VO. Hence, the oxygen elimination reaction of NOx is not
promoted on the {1 0 0} facets.
Xie and his collaborators have recently reported that on atomically thin nanoplates (nanosheets9 of Bismuth oxychloride
(BiOCl) [75]. The BiOCl nanosheets were crystal-engineered such
that the active {0 0 1} facets are maximized to efficiently promote
photocatalytic dye degradation even with extremely low photocatalyst loading (Fig. 7). The finding of the existence of distinct
oxygen defects in ultrathin nanosheets leads to new possibilities

The mass transport of the fuel molecules to the catalyst surface

strongly affects the energy-extraction efficiency. The mass transport is ruled by the mean-free-path of the fuel molecules in a given
atmosphere, which is usually of a micrometer order, close to the
size of biosystems: including living cells. There have been a
number of papers on cell-structured catalysts for energy-conversion applications [74101].
Ariga and his collaborators have demonstrated for the first time
that micrometer-sized hollow Pt cells, called metallic cells, show
much enhanced catalytic performance because of the tailored
microstructure (Fig. 8) [76]. So far, different platinum nanomaterials including nanosheets and nanoparticles have been used in
several applications including fuel cells and catalysts in automobile technologies because of their high surface areas, which are
however often subject to deterioration caused by their agglomeration. On the contrary, interior surfaces of metallic cells are free
from the surface area loss associated with particle agglomeration.
Experience has revealed that the interior of the hollow Pt spheres
are isolated from direct contact with the other spheres, retaining
active sites even at elevated temperatures. Indeed, the catalytic
CO-remediation (CO + 1/2O2 = CO2) efficiency of the metallic
cells is much more than double the efficiency of filled Pt spheres,
indicating that the interior of the hollow Pt spheres have much
more active sites than the exterior. In addition, the use of both
interior and exterior surfaces of metallic cells could also lead to
more effective use of scarce natural resources, in this case the
precious element platinum. As discussed in Molecular-scale tailoring: catalytic alloy nanoparticles section, the apparent activity of the
catalysts is strongly enhanced by alloying Pt with Pd and/or Rh.
The strategy developed for metallic cells would be widely applicable to the alloys of Pt, Pd, and/or Rh to realize superior activity in
the future, compared to that of the pure Pt material at present.
Domen and his collaborators have recently proposed another
cell-structured catalyst for an efficient water splitting reaction
under light illumination (photocatalytic water splitting) (Fig. 9)
[77]. They first prepared hollow spherical structures consisted of a
visible-light sensitive photocatalyst, Ta2N5. The prepared Ta2N5
cells have a number of though pores in the shell which allow
molecular diffusion between the inside and the outside the cells.
They further immobilized Pt NPs and IrO2 NPs respectively on the

FIGURE 8
FIGURE 7

Photocatalytic dye-degradation promoted by BiOCl nanosheets.

16

Remediation of carbon monoxide by open-mouthed platinum capsules,

metallic cells. Reactant molecules are catalytically dissociated and
recombined over the agglomeration-free interior of the metallic cells.

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FIGURE 10

Overview of catalytic nanoarchitectonics.

FIGURE 9

Photocatalytic water-splitting catalyzed by an artificial cell having Pt and

IrO2 nanoparticles respectively on the interior and exterior. H2 and O2
molecules are generated over the Pt and IrO2 nanoparticles, respectively.
The reverse reaction of the water-splitting, recombination of H2 and O2, is
inhibited by the cell wall.

interior and the exterior of the cells. Under illumination of visible

light, the Ta2N5 cells generate electron-hole pairs because of the
appropriate band structure of the material which efficiently
absorbs the visible light. The electrons and holes move in the
opposite directions, to respectively reach the Pt NPs and IrO2 NPs,
promoting the hydrogen-evolution reaction on the interior and
the oxygen-evolution reaction on the exterior of the cell. The cell
wall efficiently separates the H2 and O2 molecules to inhibit
unwanted recombination to promote the desirable forward reaction to generate H2 and O2 from water.

Future perspective
The 20th century balanced precariously between mass production
and huge consumption, with energy management mostly focused
on the cost and efficiency. Energy management in the 21st century
is more focused on sustainability and environmental integrity.
This is different from the situation in the 20th century, where the
world was divided into two different groups of countries: one of
them produced resources and the other consumed. To meet the
huge demands of the consuming countries, the producing countries supplied standardized products in industrial scales.
The demands for energy and products in the 21st century are
becoming more segmented than ever. It is becoming unrealistic to
supply such different needs with the huge production of standardized products in the style of the 20th century. In addition, as a result
of the connected economic activity in the world, it is becoming
more important to consider global-scale environmental impact
resulting from human activity involving production and consumption. The catalytic nanoarchitectonics we have introduced in this
review may provide a solution to the challenge of balancing the
economic growth of emerging countries and the increasing
demands for environmental integrity in established countries.

Catalytic nanoarchitectonics is the art of tailoring and assembling the desired functional components according to the scale of
catalytic events ranging from nanometer to micrometer scales
(Fig. 10). The synthetic strategies are currently not systematized.
Nanoparticles are usually synthesized through wet-chemistry
routes starting from small-sized molecules [102]; facet-engineered
catalysts are also prepared through wet-chemistry routes using
surfactants to promote the selective growth of targeted facets
[103]; template-synthesis or physico-chemical methods including
chemical-vapor deposition are widely used to tailor micrometersized materials [104]. It is a challenge to integrate these different
synthetic methods to fully establish synthetic nanoarchitectonics
toward the absolute design of desired catalysts consisting of tailored components with programmed nanostructures and functionalities [105].
Catalytic nanoarchitectonics is not limited to the exhaust remediation or fuel-cell reactions discussed in this review but can be
expanded to different catalytic reactions for energy conversions
such as photon-to-chemical conversion, and chemical-to-electricity conversion, which lead to environmentally benign energy
management based on sunlight as the energy source; including
photon-energy scavenging, storage in the molecules in the chemical bonds, use in the form of electricity and finally remediation of
the unused portion of the fuel through catalytic remediation.
Structure-tailored catalysts can still be improved in reaction
selectivity. The inorganic catalysts can strongly promote the energy-conversion reaction because of the extended electronic structure and are durable because of the Madelung effect, but as a
tradeoff, they are poor in reaction selectivity. Another class of
catalyst, organic, co-ordination complexes and even enzymes, can
select the targeted reaction path, being highly sensitive to slight
differences in the molecular structure of the reactants (mostly
through steric hindrance), but they are isolated, free-standing
and hence do not smoothly transport the energy/electrons and
can be readily decomposed during energy-conversion reactions.
The high activity and low operation temperatures of structuretailored catalysts enable them to be combined with organic and/or
enzymes to yield reaction-selective, high-efficiency catalysts when
the reaction conditions are low, near room temperature. As a
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preliminary approach, calix arene was combined with a platinum

surface to selectively promote the hydrogen oxidation reaction at
room temperature in the presence of oxygen [106]. The poisoning
by oxygen adsorption is strongly inhibited because the adsorbed
calix arene molecules work as a molecular sieve that recognize the
difference in the molecular size of H2 and O2.
Living things, including humans, very smartly use organic
catalysts and enzymes to manage materials and energy near room
temperature. It seems to be almost impossible to artificially simulate the functionality of living things. But humans started with
cheap mimics of flying birds before finally creating gigantic aircraft; high-speed cars have long since surpassed horses they sought
to imitate. Nanoarchitectonics will open the door to a simulated
life that can be even better than what nature currently offers, in
terms of durability and scalability.

Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by World Premier International
Research Center Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan & the JST
PRESTO program.
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