Waste bacteria build designer nanocatalysts

Bacteria could be the key to improving metal catalysts for the chemical industry, according to research in Germany.

Scientists from the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (FZR) in Dresden have exploited the survival skills of bacteria that live in uranium mining waste to make tiny clusters of the precious metal palladium.¹ These tiny bullets, just a few billionths of a millimetre across, are much better catalysts than normal palladium, which is used in speeding up chemical reactions, for example in a car's catalytic converter.