Formation and selected catalytic properties of ruthenium, rhodium, osmium and iridium nanoparticles

The synthesis and applications of nanoparticles formed from various platinum-group metals have been intensively investigated for many years because such systems have many important commercial applications, mainly as heterogeneous catalysts. Because of the very large number of data concerning nanoparticles of the platinum-group metals, in this review we focus only on nanoparticles formed from less frequently used members of the platinum family (i.e.: ruthenium, rhodium, osmium and iridium). Various methods of synthesis of unsupported and supported nanoparticles from these elements are described. Some example applications of such systems as catalysts have been also described, mainly those, for which there is a clear dependence of the catalytic activity on the size and shape of used nanoparticles.