Materials catalysts with surface-modified, enhanced

If correlations do exist for simple metals, predictions are much more difficult for composite materials. On the other hand, cathode activation has two aims (i) to replace active but expensive materials with cheaper ones, and (ii) to enhance the activity of cheaper materials so as to approach or even surpass that of the more expensive catalysts. In the case of pure metals there is little hope to find a new material satisfying the above requirements since in the volcano curve each metal has a fixed position which cannot be changed. Therefore, activation of pure metals can only be achieved by modifying its structure so as to enhance the surface area (which has nothing to do with electrocatalysis in a strict sense), and possibly to influence the mechanism and the energetic state of the intermediate in the wanted direction. This includes the preparation of rough surfaces but also of dispersed catalysts. Examples will be discussed later. 

Many studies on the direct reaction of methyl chloride with silicon-copper contact mass and other metal promoters added to the silicon-copper contact mass have focused on the reaction mechanisms.7,8 The reaction rate and the selectivity for dimethyldichlorosilane in this direct synthesis are influenced by metal additives, known as promoters, in low concentration. Aluminum, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, mercury, phosphorus, phosphine compounds34 and their metal complexes,35,36 Zinc,37 39 tin38-40 etc. are known to have beneficial effects as promoters for dimethyldichlorosilane formation.7,8 Promoters are not themselves good catalysts for the direct reaction at temperatures < 350 °C,6,8 but require the presence of copper to be effective. When zinc metal or zinc compounds (0.03-0.75 wt%) were added to silicon-copper contact mass, the reaction rate was potentiated and the selectivity of dimethyldichlorosilane was enhanced further.34 These materials are described as structural promoters because they alter the surface enrichment of silicon, increase the electron density of the surface of the catalyst modify the crystal structure of the copper-silicon solid phase, and affect the absorption of methyl chloride on the catalyst surface and the activation energy for the formation of dimethyldichlorosilane.38,39 Cadmium is also a structural promoter for this reaction, but cadmium presents serious toxicity problems in industrial use on a large scale.41,42 Other metals such as arsenic, mercury, etc. are also restricted because of such toxicity problems. In the direct reaction of methyl chloride, tin in... 

Methods of metal modification used in the catalyst preparation have been reported to influence the state of metal, dispersion, concentration of metal, size and surface area. Further more the metal-support interactions, physico-chemical and catalytic properties of the catalysts have also been observed to be influenced by the methods of catalyst preparation. Use of computational and combinatorial methods for catalyst preparation, characterisation and evaluation of catalysts can enhance the possibility of finding new catalytic materials and potential application areas [1-4]. Zeolites and mesoporous molecular sieves are often modified with metals by ion-exchange method, however other methods... 

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