A new chapter has been opened in our understanding of the
chemical activity of nanoparticles says a team of international scientists.
Using the X-ray beams of The European Synchrotron (ESRF) they showed that the
electrons absorbed and released by cerium dioxide nanoparticles during chemical
reactions behave in a completely different way than previously thought: the
electrons are not bound to individual atoms but, like a cloud, distribute
themselves over the whole nanoparticle. Inspired by the similarity of its
shape, the scientists call this spatial distribution of particles an
"electron sponge". The results were published on 12 November in the
journal ACS Nano.