Applied Catalysis Energy, Environment and Sustainability

1st Online International Conference on “Emerging Trends in Catalysis for Sustainable Chemical Processes (ETCSCP - 2021)”, from 26th to 28th August 2021 was jointly organized by IIChE - Bangalore Regional Centre, Catalysis Society of India - Bangalore Chapter, Department of Chemical Engineering,M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research (PPISR) and Department of Chemical Engineering, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering. Eight plenary speakers from across the globe addressed the audience and shared their research experience on application of catalysis encompassing energy, environment and sustainability.

Mechanochemystry as advanced methodology in green chemistry for applied catalysis

In this survey we have assessed how mechanochemistry techniques comply with the aims of Green Chemistry to minimise the use of environmentally damaging reactants and unwanted by-products. In the publications the preparation of vanadium-phosphorus oxides as industrial catalysts for maleic anhydride production from n-butane and perspective catalysts of phthalic anhydride manufacture by direct n-pentane oxidation were analyzed. It is shown that mechanochemical activation and synthesis reduces the amount of harmful waste used in the production of the catalyst and increases its effectiveness. Improvement of a catalyst’s properties, help limit production of harmful emissions such as carbon oxides and hydrocarbons. It was established that mechanochemical treatment can by successfully used in the process of industrial vanadium-phosphorus oxide catalysts modification or in the process of introduction in its composition of additives which lead to increase of activity and selectivity of hydrocarbons oxidation. The possibility of the mechanochemistry use in the vanadium-titanium oxide catalysts preparation which are the base catalysts in industrial phthalic anhydride production from o-xylene was determined. It was established that mechanochemical treatment of the vanadium and titanium oxides mixture permits to delete the nitrogen oxides emission in atmosphere and prepared catalysts demonstrate the same phthalic anhydride yield but at low reraction temperature. Catalysts, manufactured by mechanochemical treatment (on the base of molybdenum oxide), provide new techniques for producing compounds as exemplified by the direct oxidation of benzene to form phenol which can replace industrial two-step process from cumene or proposed process of benzene oxidation by N2O. Mechanochemistry treatment could produce catalysts which eliminated the need to use highly toxic nitrogen oxides as reducing agents. The article describes activating Cu-Ce-O catalysts which reduce the temperature of the process for removing carbon monoxide from exhaust gases and as a method for purifying hydrogen u sed in fuel cells. Finally, there is a description of mechanochemically treated catalysts, containing metals and supported on stainless steel supports which are used to remove aromatic hydrocarbons from water sewers.

A sandwich-like Ga2FeS4 supported single metal atom as a promising bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Developing highly efficient and economical bifunctional catalysts for overall water splitting is challenging but of great concern to renewable energy conversion and applied catalysis towards sustainable development. Herein, by employing...

Pd-Fe3O4/RGO: a Highly Active and Magnetically Recyclable Catalyst for Suzuki Cross Coupling Reaction using a Microfluidic Flow Reactor

There are several crucial issues that need to be addressed in the field of applied catalysis. These issues are not only related to harmful environmental impact but also include process safety concerns, mass and heat transfer limitations, selectivity, high pressure, optimizing reaction conditions, scale-up issues, reproducibility, process reliability, and catalyst deactivation and recovery. Many of these issues could be solved by adopting the concept of micro-reaction technology and flow chemistry in the applied catalysis field. A microwave assisted reduction technique has been used to prepare well dispersed, highly active Pd/Fe3O4 nanoparticles supported on reduced graphene oxide nanosheets (Pd-Fe3O4/RGO), which act as a unique catalyst for Suzuki cross coupling reactions due to the uniform dispersion of palladium nanoparticles throughout the surface of the magnetite - RGO support. The Pd-Fe3O4/RGO nanoparticles have been shown to exhibit extremely high catalytic activity for Suzuki cross coupling reactions under both batch and continuous reaction conditions. This paper reported a reliable method for Suzuki cross-coupling reaction of 4-bromobenzaldehyde using magnetically recyclable Pd/Fe3O4 nanoparticles supported on RGO nanosheets in a microfluidic-based high throughput flow reactor. Organic synthesis can be performed under high pressure and temperature by using a stainless steel micro tubular flow reactor under continuous flow reaction conditions. Optimizing the reaction conditions was performed via changing several parameters including temperature, pressure, and flow rate. Generally, a scalable flow technique by optimizing the reaction parameters under high-temperature and continuous reaction conditions could be successfully developed.