History of Catalysis

Abstract

Catalysis has played a central role in the chemical industry from its beginning in the late eighteenth century. Today, catalytic processes are used to make gasoline, to synthesize most pharmaceuticals, chemicals, polymers, and to reduce pollution from cars and power plants. The discovery of new catalysts creates new products, such as polypropylene, or dramatically improves the manufacture of existing ones, such as gasoline. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, scientists, including Michael Faraday, investigated chemical reactions initiated by platinum. In 1836, Berzelius coined the word catalysis to generalize a growing body of experimental data. A half century later, Wilhelm Ostwald linked catalysis to chemical thermodynamics and kinetics by defining catalysts as substances that alter the velocity of chemical reactions without appearing in the end products. About the same time, many chemists were using heterogeneous catalysts to develop new processes, the most significant of which was the Haber, Bosch, and Mittasch ammonia process. The dramatic success of the chemical industry throughout most of the twentieth century in no small part derived from the discovery of new catalysts. Given the growing importance of catalysis to the chemical industry, many researchers investigated the fundamental mechanisms of catalysis. While many specific advances were made, no general theory emerged. Since the 1960s, academic research in catalysis has used increasingly sophisticated analytical techniques to explore catalytic phenomena at the atomic level. In part due to the maturity of the chemical industry, this new knowledge has not yet been converted into major new catalytic technologies.

Pulsed activation in heterogeneous catalysis

“…Due to the high selectivity, the plot of the performance measure is nearly the same as that of R C in the left of figure 3.12. The peak performance is approximately 54 1 s , more than two orders of magnitude higher than the peak performance attainable with constant temperature.…”

Conductive catalysis by subsurface transition metals

“…The outermost Al atoms act as the conductive layer for catalysis. That is, the catalytic force, as initially proposed by Berzelius in 1936 [ 34 ], can be conductive like magnetic forces and electrostatic forces.…”

Engaging nanoporous carbons in “beyond adsorption” applications: Characterization, challenges and performance

“…The history of heterogeneous catalysis development provides a rough precedent. Work in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries to develop heterogeneous catalytic materials was characterized by the measurement of macroscopic material and performance parameters, while employing the methods of synthetic chemistry and engineering science as they were developed [168][169][170]. Catalytic sites were hypothesized and specific site information was inferred from macroscopic measurements.…”