Atomically thin tin dioxide sheets for efficient catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide.

The thinner the better: SnO2 sheets that are five atomic layers thick are an efficient catalyst for the oxidation of CO. These sheets, which have 40% surface atom occupancy and are fabricated by a scalable ethylenediamine-assisted pathway, show remarkably improved catalytic performances compared to other SnO2 species, with the apparent activation energy lowered to 59.2 kJ mol(-1) and the full-conversion-temperature lowered to 250 °C.