Royal Society of Chemistry, Chemical Communications, 45(50), p. 6005-6008
DOI: 10.1039/c4cc01687d
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Synchrotron X-ray diffraction coupled to atomic pair distribution function analysis and Reverse Monte Carlo simulations is used to determine the atomic-scale structure of Ru nanoparticle catalysts for the Fischer-Tropsch reaction. The rate of CO hydrogenation strongly correlates with the abundance of surface atoms with coordination numbers of 10 and 11. DFT calculations confirm that CO dissociation proceeds with a low barrier on these Ru surface atom ensembles.