Resumen de Heterogeneous Catalysis with Renewed Attention: Principles, Theories, and Concepts
Franck Dumeignil, Jean François Paul, Sébastien Paul
With the development of a strong bioeconomy sector related to the creation of next-generation biorefineries, heterogeneous catalysis is receiving renewed attention. Indeed, catalysis is at the core of biorefinery design, and many new catalysts and catalytic processes are being developed. On the one hand, they are based on knowledge acquired during the last century to efficiently upgrade fossil resources. On the other hand, they take advantage of the opportunity of having new substrates on which novel conversion technologies, derived from recent fundamental advances and new concepts developed in the field of heterogeneous catalysis, can be tested and applied. In this context, there is a global trend for establishing new courses throughout the world to train students and professionals in the bioeconomy/biorefinery sector. Such courses encompass many different fields in a multidisciplinary approach, including agronomy, logistics, life cycle assessment, biotechnologies, process design, economics, and, obviously, chemistry. For the last of these, a specific important role is given to catalysis, and more especially to heterogeneous catalysis. Such courses need to explain the basics of each scientific field involved before giving concrete examples of research/development. Among them, the aforementioned heterogeneous catalysis is an especially complex scientific field in which surface science, spectroscopy, thermodynamics, and other disciplines are intimately interwoven. While many references presenting specific aspects of catalysis can be found, concise documents encompassing all of the angles of this very rich field—including its most recent developments and prospects, aimed at a readership already trained in chemistry—are scarce. This paper gives a global and simple “heterogeneous catalysis tour” to explain in a concise way what heterogeneous catalysis is without going into too much detail. The students who would like to know more about some specific aspects will find useful authoritative references in the text, making this paper a good introduction to all aspects of heterogeneous catalysis.
