Patent ID: 8226740

Claim:
An inorganic material consisting of at least two elementary spherical particles, each of said spherical particles comprising metal nanoparticles that are between 1 and 300 nm in size, said metal nanoparticles comprising at least one transition metal oxide and/or at least one rare earth metal oxide in which said metal is Ti, Zr, Nb, Ta, Mo, W, Fe, Co, Cu, Y, La, Ni, Cr, Pd, Pt, Ce, Eu, Nd, Gd or mixtures thereof, said metal nanoparticles being trapped within a mesostructured matrix with an oxide base of at least one element X that is aluminum, titanium, tungsten, zirconium, gallium, germanium, tin, antimony, lead, vanadium, iron, manganese, hafnium, niobium, tantalum, yttrium, cerium, gadolinium, europium or neodymium, whereby said mesostructured matrix has a pore size of between 1.5 and 30 nm and has amorphous walls with a thickness of between 1 and 30 nm, said elementary spherical particles having a maximum diameter of 10 μm.