“…In addition, the electronic structure and reactivity of the clusters could be improved due to electronic and steric factors imposed by the phosphine ligands. 11 As a result, phosphine-protected gold clusters formulated as Au n (PPh 3 ) m , such as Au 9 (PPh 3 ) 8 (NO 3 ) 3 and Au 101 (PPh 3 ) 21 Cl 5 , have been shown to exhibit catalytic activity in a wide range of reactions, such as hydrogenation of terminal alkynes into alkenes, 12 CO oxidation, 13,14 styrene oxidation to benzaldehyde 15 and styrene epoxide, 16 and benzyl alcohol oxidation. 17,18 However, the size-specific catalytic activity of AuNCs has often been difficult to determine experimentally as clusters are prone to aggregation either during deposition or activation on the support, 19,20 or deactivation of the catalyst following initial reaction.…”