Rational Design of Bioinspired Nanocomposites with Tunable Catalytic Activity

Biological assembly processes offer inspiration for ordering building blocks across multiple length scales into advanced functional materials. Such bioinspired strategies are attractive assembling supported catalysts, where shaping and structuring essential their performance but still remain tremendously difficult to achieve. Here, we present a simple route toward catalysts with tunable activity selectivity. We coprecipitate shape-controlled nanocomposites large specific surface areas of barium carbonate nanocrystals that uniformly embedded in silica support. Subsequently, exchange the cobalt while preserving nanoscopic layout microscopic shape, demonstrate catalytic performances Fischer–Tropsch synthesis as case study. Control over crystal size between 10 17 nm offers selectivity shorter (C5–C11) longer (C20+) hydrocarbons, respectively. Hence, these results open simple, versatile, scalable routes highly reactive catalysts.