Interesting times for catalysts

✍ Scribed by Alan E. Comyns

• Book ID: 104384106
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Weight: 63 KB
• Volume: 2003
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1351-4180
• DOI: 10.1016/s1351-4180(03)00001-1

✦ Synopsis

This is the issue in which I try to epitomise the past year in one word. Previous years have been, in reverse order, Mixed, Mediocre, Inventive, Combinatorial, Litigious, Challenging, Vintage, and Watershed. This year I can only describe as Interesting, mindful of the well-known ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".

Important business developments in 2003 have been the consolidation of the catalysts businesses of Johnson Matthey and Synetix (formerly ICI catalysts) under JM ownership, and the takeover of the former catalyst business of DeGussa (part of OM Group) by Umicore (formerly Union Minière). In neither case was there much overlap between the activities of the acquirer and the acquired, so there need be no reduction in their technical activities.

Nano-materials ('grey goo') caught the imagination of newspaper columnists and the Prince of Wales. It is obvious that reducing particle size increases surface area per unit weight, and thus increases catalytic activity per unit weight. However, below a certain particle size other effects come into play and the fundamental properties of the material start to change. This effect is well known to researchers into the electronic and optical properties of solids, but is only just being recognised and utilised in catalytic science.

Fuel cells continued to develop fast. The ideal cell uses mixed reagents and perfectly selective