Fouling of surfaces leads to performance degradation in many energy-intensive industrial processes, but the present solutions are either too complicated to be routinely used or incomplete for eradication. Here we propose and demonstrate that carbon-containing deposits can be catalytically wiped out in an efficient way by roaming palladium nanoparticles with extreme shape flexibility at relatively low temperatures. Surprisingly, during their dramatic liquid-like migrations, these particles could still maintain crystalline interior and conserve their initial crystal orientations through self-surface diffusion. Moreover, these catalytic particles were even able to become regenerated by other roaming particles after occasionally deactivated by surface coking or multiple-particle sintering. These findings shed light on metabolically driven, "living" nanocrystals, and also open a new avenue for efficient catalysis.
@article{arxiv.1802.00207,
title = {Highly Deformable and Mobile Palladium Nanocrystals as Efficient Carbon Scavengers},
author = {Peng-Han Lu and De-Gang Xie and Bo-Yu Liu and Fei Ai and Zhao-Rui Zhang and Ming-Shang Jin and Xiao Feng Zhang and Evan Ma and Ju Li and Zhi-Wei Shan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.00207},
year = {2018}
}