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Tltanla-Ahmina Support Layer

Inventors at Matsushita Electric Indus- tries Company Ltd. have described (Japanese patent applications 94928730- 82 and 94028731-82) the use of titania- alumina composites (prepared by two ap- proaches) which are strongly adhered to a variety of supports. Preferred applications for this support layer include automotive exhaust catalysts, especially with regard to their resistance against heat and lead poi- soning. Equimolar titanium tetraethoxide and aluminum isopropoxide were added to excess water to form a titan&alumina gel. Alternatively an excess of urea can be added to an equimolar mixture of titanium sulfate and aluminum nitrate to form a simi- lar gel. A honeycomb monolith support was dipped into about 29 wt.-% of this gel and dried and calcined at 500°C for 1 h. A platinum salt solution can then readily be impregnated onto this support layer.

JOHN N. ARMOR

Dynamic Processes on Solid Surfaces

One of the first books which I ever re- viewed was one of a similar title, Dynamic Heterogeneous Catalysis by Kenzi Tamaru (Academic Press, 1978). Now retired and working at the Science University of Tokyo,

Professor Tamaru has edited an issue with the above title in the Plenum series, Fun- damental and Applied Catalysis (Series Editors, Martin Twigg and Mike Spencer). It is a collection of papers by Japanese authors which address first the theoretical basis of surface reactions and then some recent advances in fields such as the pro- duction of chiral products with high yields, the clean-up of effluents and the study of

applied catalysts A: General

catalysis by well-de&ted surfaces such as single crystals, zeolltes and clays, and sur- face supported clusters.

Just published in the same series is a book entitled “Catafyst Characterisation: Physical Techniques for Solid Materials”. This is edited by Boris lmelik and Jacques C. Vedrine of the lnstitut de Recherchessur la Catalyse CNRS, Villeurbanne, France, Earlier publications in the same series were “Catalytic Ammonia Synthesis - Fun- damentals and Practice” (Edited by JR. Jennings, ICI, Wilton, UK), “Elementary Physicochemical Processes on Solid Sur- faces” (by V.P. Zhdanov, Institute of Cata- lysis, Novosibirsk, Russia), and “Principles of Catalyst Development” (by James T. Richardson, University of Houston, Texas, USA).

JULIAN ROSS

Catalysis Today

It is some time since an update has been given on issues of our sister publica- tion, Cata/ysis Today. The following there- fore gives a brief outline of the issues con- tained in the last three volumes.

Volume 18, No. 1 was an issue edited by Mark G. White of the focused Research Program in Surface Science and Catalysis

of Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA entitled “Multinuclear Metal Complexes as Novel Catalysts”. It consists of three reviews, thefirst by H. Henry Lamb (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC) which deals with engineering catalyst surfaces with metal carbonyl clusters. The second chapter, by Y. lwasawa (Univer- sity of Tokyo), discusses the preparation and characterisation of catalysts prepared by surface organometallic techniques. The

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final chapter, by Mark White, is concerned with the use of polynuclear complexes to give designed dispersions of supported metal oxides.

Volume 18, No. 2 is a compilation, edited by Las10 Guczi and Zoltan Schay (of the Institute of Isotopes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), of a series of papers given at a satellite symposium of the Tenth International Congress on Cata- lysis entitled “Catalysis 2889: Strategy and Expectations”. The papers presented, which dealt particularly with waste-free technologies and the solution of environ- mental problems, summarise the personal views of the authors of what developments we may see in catalysis in the next century. These authors are Gabor A. Somorjai (Ber- keley, California), Jens R. Rostrup Nielsen (Haldor Topsoe, Lyngby, Denmark), Ken C. Waugh (ICI, Cleveland, UK), Bruno No- tari (ENI, San Donato Milanese, Italy), D. Arntz (Degussa, Hanau, Germany) and Leo E. Manzer (DuPont, Wilmington, Dela- ware).

Vol. 18, No. 3 is a monograph by Pro- fessor Oleg V. Krylov of the N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of the Rus- sian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, on “Catalytic Reactions of Partial Methane Ox- idation”. This is an extensive review of the subject, with 441 references, which gives a particularly good perspective of the exten- sive Russian work in this area.

Vol. 18, No. 4 deals with “Fuels and Feedstocks: The Next Generation of Cata- lysts and Processes”. Edited by Graham J. Hutchings (Leverhulme Centre, University of Liverpool, UK) and Mike S. Scurrell (Di- vision of Energy Technology, CSIR, Preto- ria, South Africa), this issue is a collection of six papers presented at a meeting of the Catalysis and Surface Reactivii Group of

the Royal Society of Chemistry in Liverpool in 1992 together with two additional papers on related subjects. The subjects included are: “Production of Synthesis Gas” (by Jens Rostrup Nielsen), “C, to Acetyls: Catalysis and Process” (by M.J. Howard, M.D. Jones, M.S. Roberts and S.A. Taylor of BP Ltd., Hull, UK), “New Synthesis Gas Chemistry” (by John F. Knifton of Texaco, Austin, Texas, J.J. Lin of Shell, Houston, Texas, David A. Storm of Texaco, Beacon, New York, and S.F. Wong of Texaco, Houston, Texas), “Natural Gas Conversion to Liquid Fuels and Chemicals: Where does It Stand” (by Norman D. Parkyns, C.I. Warburton and J.D. Wilson, British Gas, Loughborough, UK), “Catalytic Skeletal lsomerization of Linear Butenes to Iso- butene” (by A.C. Butler and C.P. Nico- laldes, CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa), “UOP Platformlng Leading Octane Technology intothe 1990’s” (by R.L. Peer, R.W. Bennett and D.E. Felch, all of UOP, Des Plaines, Illinois, and E. von Schmidt of UOP, Guild- ford, Surrey, UK), “Fluid Catalytic Cracking Chemistry” (by John Dwyer, of UMIST, Manchester, UK, and David J. Rawlence, of Crosfield Catalysts, Warrington, UK), and “Fluid Catalytic Cracking: Some Re- cent Developments in Catatyst Particle De- sign and Unit Hardware” (by R. Mann, UMIST, Manchester, UK).

Volume 19 commences with an issue edited by Mark E. Davis, of Caltech, Pa- sadena, CA, USA, on “Large Pore Molecu- lar Sieves”. It contains an introduction by the editor and this is followed by chapters by John B. Higgins (Mobil, Princeton, NJ) on “Large Pore Zeollte Frameworks and Materials”, Stefan Ernst and Jens Weit- kamp (University of Stuttgart, Germany) on “Synthesis of Large Pore Aluminosili- cates”, Honh-Xin Li and Mark E. Davis (Pa-

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sadena) on “Phosphate&reed Molecular Sieves with Pores Comprised of Greater than 12-Rings”, Weitkamp and Ernst (Stutt- gart) on “Catalytic Test Reactions for Prob- ing the Pore Width of Large and Super- Large Pore Molecular Sieves”, C.B. Dartt and ME. Davis (Pasadena) on “Applica- tions of Zeolites to Fine Chemicals Syn- thesis”, and Y. Sugi and M. Toba (National Institute of Materials and Chemical Re- search, Tsukuba, Japan) on “Shape-Se- lective Alkylation of Polynuclear Aro- matics”.

Volume 19, No. 2 is entitled “Heteroge- neously Catalyzed Selective Oxidations in the Liquid Phase”. Edited by Atfone Baiker and T. Mallat of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, this issue contains four review articles by Roger A. Sheldon and Jihad Dakka (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands) on “Heterogeneous Catalytic Oxidations in the Manufacture of Fine Chemicals”, T. Mallat and A. Baiker (Zurich) on “Oxidation of Alcohols with Molecular Oxygen on Platinum Metal Catalysts in Aqueous Solu- tions”, G. Horanyi (Central Research In- stitute for Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hun- gary), on “Heterogeneous Catalysis and Electrocatalysis”, and Pierre Picat (CNRS, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Ecully, France), on “Partial or Complete Heterogeneous Photocatalytic Oxidation of Organic Com- pounds in Liquid Organic or Aqueous Phases”.

hindar S. Seera ( West Virginia University) on “Thermal Conversion of Coal Liquefac- tion Resids: Temperature-Programmed Electron Spin Resonance and Thermogra- vimetric Investigations”, T. Zhang, P.D. Jacobs and H.W. Haynes, Jr., (University of Wyoming, Laramie) on “Laboratory Evaluation of Four Coal Liquefaction Cata- IystsPreparedfrom ModifiedAluminaSup- ports”, Timothy D. Walter, Stephen M. Casey, MlchaelT. Klein and Henry C. Foley (Unlversity of Delaware, Newark) on “Re- action of 4-(Naphthylmethyl)bibenzyl, Thermally and in the Presence of Fe(CO)s(PPh&“, Charles D. Scott, Char- lene A. Woodward and Timothy C. Scott (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) on “Use of Chemically Modiii Enzymes in Or- ganic Solvents for Conversion of Coals to Liquids”, A.V. Cugini, D. Krastman, R.G. Lett and V.D. Balsone (Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center) on “Development of a Dispersed Iron Catalyst for First Stage Coal Liquefaction”, W.D. Provine, B. Jung, M.A. Jacintha, D.G. Rethwisch, H. Huang, W.H. Calkins, MT. Klein and CR. Dybowski (University of Delaware) and C. Scouten (Amoco Oil Co., Naperville, Illinois) on “A Kinetic Investigation of Coal Liquefaction at Short Reaction Times”, and Liguang Xu, Ajoy P. Raje, Robert A. Keogh, Scott Lam- bert, Robert L. Spicer, Denis E. Sparks, ShuhJeng Liaw and Burtron H. Davis (University of Kentucky, Lexington) on “A Comparison of Reactors in Coal Liquefac- tion”.

Volume 19, No. 3 is edited by D.B. Da- Volume 29, No. 1 is ediied by Jacques dyburjor and J.W. Zondlo (West Virginia Vedrine (institute of Catalysis, Villeur- University, Morgantown, WV) and is en- banne, France) and is entitled “Eurocat titled “Coal Liquefaction”. It is a multi- Oxide”. This consists of a series of articles author issue consisting of seven papers on by scientists from a range of European the subject from authors from a range of laboratories, all of whom have worked on backgrounds: Manjula M. lbrahim and Mo- a standard sample of vanadia on titania

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and have characterised this by a variety of different techniques, ranging from physical methods to catalytic testing. In most cases, parallel work has been carried out by a number of different laboratories taking part in the collaborative effort and the re- sults are gratifyingly similar in all cases.

Volume 20, No. 2, is edited by Peter J.

Moles of MEL Chemicals of Swinton, Man- chester, UK, and is entitled “Zirconium in Catalysis”. This consists of a series of re- views on the subject by KozoTanabe (Nip- pon Shokubai, Osaka, Japan) and Tsu- tomu Yamaguchi (Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan) on “Acid-base Bifunc- tional Catalysis by ZrCa and its Mixed Ox- ides”, Tsutomu Yamaguchi (Sapporo) on “Application of ZrOP as a Catalyst and a Catalyst Support”, Burtron H. Davis, Ro- bert A. Keogh and Ram Srinivasan (Univer- sity of Kentucky, Lexington) on “Sulfated Zirconia as a Hydrocarbon Conversion Catalyst”, W. Kaminsky (University of Hamburg, Germany) on “Zircocene Cata- lysts for Olefin Polymerization” , M. Vrinat, D. Hamon and M. Breysse (Institute of Catalysis, Villeurbanne), B. Durand (Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeur- banne) and T. des Courieres (Elf-France, St. Symphorien d’Ozon) on “Zirconia- and Alumina-Supported Molybdenumbased Catalysts: A Comparative Study in Hy- drodesulphurization and Hydrogenation Reactions”, Ian S. Metcaife (Imperial Col- lege, London) on “Stabilized-Zirconia Solid Electrolyte Membranes in Catalysis”, A. Clearfield, G.P.D. Serrette and A.H. Khazi-Syed (Texas A&M University, Col- lege Station) on “Nature of Hydrous Zirco- nia and Sulfated Hydrous Zirconia”, and Colin J. Norman (Aican Chemicals, Ger- rards Cross, UK) and Peter A. Goulding and Ian McAlpine (MEL Chemicals, Swin-

applied catalysis A: General

ton) on “Role of Anions in the Surface Area Stabilisation of Zirconia”.

It is to be hoped that there is something for everyone in the issues summarised above. Even though I have been involved in various stages of the preparation of many of the issues, I still found myseif being side-tracked into reading several of the chapters while preparing the above summary. However, there is always the chance that we have not yet covered your favouriie subject or that you feel that our issue on the subject is now outdated. If that is the case, now is your chance to author or act as Guest Editor for a forthcoming issue. Ideas are always welcome on sub- jects which need to be reviewed.

JULIAN ROSS

JECAT ‘95

As was announced previously (Appl. Catal., 114 (1994) N7), thesecond Japan- EC Joint Workshop on the Frontiers of Catalytic Science and Technology (JECAT’95) will be held in Lyon, France, from 26th to 2Qth April, 1995. The First Circular for this meeting has now ap- peared. The previous conference in the series was held in December 1991 in Tokyo and was a fruitful opportunity for both scientific communities to present their resuits and to discuss recent advances in environmental catalysis. Work on catalytic science and technology related to the en- vironment offers one of the greatest chances to improve the environment for humans and this area of research is likely to influence greatly science and technol- ogy in the 21st century. Catalysis is likely to contribute to areas such as the produc- tion of clean fuels, combustion without the

Volume 117 No. 1 - 15 September 1994