Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - CNyN

1st International Symposium on Nanoscience and Nanomaterials
PLENARY VI
SOLID-VACUUM, SOLID-GAS AND SOLID-LIQUID INTERFACES: STRUCTURE AND
DYNAMICS UNDER ENVIRONMENTALLY RELEVANT CONDITIONS
Miquel Salmeron
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Materials Science and Engineering Dept.
University of California at Berkeley.
New revolutionary technologies are needed to produce clean and renewable energies, efficient and
highly selective chemical processes (green catalysis), high capacity rechargeable batteries, and fuel cells and
also to find solutions to environmental problems. For this it is imperative to develop new fundamental
approaches to the study of the interface of solid materials with gases, liquids and solids, because it is in these
environments that crucial processes occur that need to be understood to enable revolutionary discoveries. One
way to control the structure of interfaces and their properties is through the design of materials of nanoscale
dimensions, with specific shapes, size and compositions. It is also imperative to use techniques that make
possible in situ atomic level structural and spectroscopic characterization of interfaces. Today we are entering
a new era of interface science and technology as a result of novel technical developments. The experimental
results obtained so far with some of the newly developed techniques are very promising and demonstrate that
the goal of control and examination of the nanoscale properties of interfaces is within reach. I will illustrate
this with examples from research carried out in my laboratory, using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM),
and new photoelectron and x-ray absorption spectroscopies (PES) under ambient conditions. Applications to
catalyst models, in the form of thin films, single crystals and nanoparticles will be examined for applications
in catalysis and electrochemistry.
PLENARY VII
CATALYSIS AND COMPLEXITY IN NANOTECHNOLOGY:
FROM MECHANISM TO FUNCTION
Valery V. Fokin
1 The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA
fokin@scripps.edu
Keywords: catalysis, organic synthesis, dendrimers, click chemistry
Nanotechnology, as a molecular science, depends on the efficient methods for controlled and
dependable assembly of complex molecular architectures. These molecular architectures store and transmit
information and, therefore, have a desired function. To succeed in this molecular construction endeavor, one
requires exquisitely selective chemical transformations that can reliably introduce various functional groups
in the product. Catalysis is at the heart of chemistry and disciplines that directly depend on it, for harnessing
the complexity of catalytic processes offers unprecedented potential for making them useful on both
laboratory and industrial scales. Catalytic activation of alkynes with transition metals will be the central
theme of the lecture. Alkynes are among the most energetic hydrocarbons, and transition metals enable
selective and controlled manipulation of the triple bond, opening the door to the wealth of reliable reactivity:
transformations of alkynes into heterocycles and into a variety of molecules with new carbon–heteroatom
bonds. The combination of catalytic alkyne functionalization followed by manipulation of the resulting
4