A team at TU Wien, led by MECS Director of Research Günther Rupprechter, has made a striking discovery: placing silver nanoparticles on a carbon substrate can boost their catalytic activity by up to 200 times. This dramatic improvement is due to the interface between silver and carbon – an area that, until now, was poorly understood and often treated as a mysterious “black box” in catalyst design.

By combining high-precision experiments with advanced computer simulations, the researchers have unlocked the underlying mechanism: the electronic interaction at the silver–carbon interface significantly enhances the material’s ability to facilitate chemical reactions. These insights pave the way for developing more efficient, cost-effective catalysts that avoid the use of rare or expensive materials.

This breakthrough perfectly reflects MECS’s mission: gaining atomic-level understanding to design next-generation energy materials. By shedding light on how interfaces control performance, this research contributes to smarter catalyst design – not just for academic exploration, but for real-world impact in energy conversion technologies.

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