γ-Alumina: The Essential and Unexpected Role of Water for the Structure, Stability, and Reactivity of “Defect” Sites

Combining experiments and DFT calculations, we show that tricoordinate Al(III) Lewis acid sites, which are present as metastable species exclusively on the major (110) termination of γ- and δ-Al(2)O(3) particles, correspond to the "defect" sites, which are held responsible for the unique properties ... View More