Heterogeneous Catalysis on Metal Oxides

TLDR

Heterogeneous catalysis on metal oxides underpins key industrial processes, including refining, petrochemicals, and environmental remediation, and spans domains such as acid–base, oxidation, biomass conversion, green chemistry, and photocatalysis. The article reviews current and prospective major industrial applications of supported and unsupported metal oxide catalysts, highlighting their economic and environmental impacts. It describes catalyst synthesis, reaction conditions, and industrial applications across domains, and discusses future directions driven by environmental considerations. The review presents viewpoints on catalyst action and includes case studies from academia and industry.

Abstract

This review article contains a reminder of the fundamentals of heterogeneous catalysis and a description of the main domains of heterogeneous catalysis and main families of metal oxide catalysts, which cover acid-base reactions, selective partial oxidation reactions, total oxidation reactions, depollution, biomass conversion, green chemistry and photocatalysis. Metal oxide catalysts are essential components in most refining and petrochemical processes. These catalysts are also critical to improving environmental quality. This paper attempts to review the major current industrial applications of supported and unsupported metal oxide catalysts. Viewpoints for understanding the catalysts’ action are given, while applications and several case studies from academia and industry are given. Emphases are on catalyst description from synthesis to reaction conditions, on main industrial applications in the different domains and on views for the future, mainly regulated by environmental issues. Following a review of the major types of metal oxide catalysts and the processes that use these catalysts, this paper considers current and prospective major applications, where recent advances in the science of metal oxide catalysts have major economic and environmental impacts.