Real catalyst

The action of a copper salt converts benzoic acid to phenol. The copper, reoxidized by air, functions as a real catalyst. The Lummus process operates in the vapor phase at approximately 250°C. Phenol yield of 90% is possible ... 

An artificial metalloenzyme (26) was designed by Breslow et al. 24). It was the first example of a complete artificial enzyme, having a substrate binding cyclodextrin cavity and a Ni2+ ion-chelated nucleophilic group for catalysis. Metalloenzyme (26) behaves a real catalyst, exhibiting turnover, and enhances the rate of hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate more than 103 fold. The catalytic group of 26 is a -Ni2+ complex which itself is active toward the substrate 1, but not toward such a substrate having no metal ion affinity at a low catalyst concentration. It is appearent that the metal ion in 26 activates the oximate anion by chelation, but not the substrate directly as believed in carboxypeptidase. 

Chlorine and Bromine. Aromatic compounds can be brominated or chlorinated by treatment with bromine or chlorine in the presence of a catalyst, most often iron. However, the real catalyst is not the iron itself, but the ferric bromide or ferric chloride formed in small amounts from the reaction... 

The mesoscopic domain of real catalysts is mostly covered by the typical catalysis periodicals, such as Applied Catalysis, the Journal of Catalysis, Catalysis Letters, Topics in Catalysis, Catalysis Today, Microporous Materials and Zeolites, although occasionally articles also appear in Journal of Physical Chemistry and Physical Chemistry-Chemical Physics, and many others. 

Transmission infrared spectroscopy is very popular for studying the adsorption of gases on supported catalysts and for studying the decomposition of infrared active catalyst precursors during catalyst preparation. Infrared spectroscopy is an in situ technique that is applicable in transmission or diffuse reflection mode on real catalysts. 

The second approach is to study real catalysts with in situ techniques such as infrared and Mossbauer spectroscopy, EXAFS and XRD, under reaction conditions, or, as is more often done, under a controlled environment after quenching of the reaction. The in situ techniques, however, are not sufficiently surface specific to yield the desired atom-by-atom characterization of the surface. At best they determine the composition of the particles. 

The dilemma is thus investigations of real catalysts under relevant conditions by in situ techniques give little information on the surface of the catalyst, while techniques that are surface sensitive can often only be applied on model surfaces under vacuum. Bridging the gap between UHV and high pressures and between the surfaces of single crystals and of real catalysts is therefore an important issue in catalysis. 

Figure 7.21 shows the results for the ammonia synthesis on real catalysts in a reactor. The surface is predominantly covered by atomic nitrogen and by NH intermediates. This actually limits the rate of the reaction as soon as an appreciable partial pressure of ammonia has built up. In fact, ammonia poisons the reaction. 

Finally, the constructed micro-kinetic model must of course be tested against measurements performed with real catalysts. Figure 7.23 shows a plot of the calculated output from the reactor against experimental values. Apparently, the micro-kinetic model describes the situation very well. This does not prove that the model is correct since models based on another series of elementary steps might also work. 

A full analysis of the rate expression reveals that all data on the Cu(lOO) single crystal are modeled very well, as shown in Fig. 8.10. Even more important is that the model also describes data obtained on a real catalyst measured under considerably different conditions reasonably well, indicating that the micro-kinetic model captures the most important features of the methanol synthesis (Fig. 8.11). 

ZnO is, apparently, a very suitable support for the copper particles. Evidence exists, however, that its role does not have to be limited to that of a support only. Nakamura et al. have studied the influence of Zn on methanol synthesis on copper crystals by depositing Zn on the surface [J. Nakamura, I. Nakamura, T. Uchijima, Y. Kanai, T. Watanabe, M. Saito, and T. Fujitani, J. Catal. 160 (1996) 65]. They found that the rate was enhanced by a factor of six (see Fig. 8.14), suggesting that Zn atoms also act as a chemical promoter. Whether some of the ZnO in the real catalyst is actually reduced to such a degree that it can alloy into the copper particles and segregate to the surface, as suggested by Nakamura, is still a controversial topic. 

In the previous sections we have dealt mainly with the catalytic activity of pure substances such as metallic iron, ruthenium, copper, platinum, etc. Real catalyst, however, are often much more complex materials that have been optimized by adding remote amounts of other elements that may have a profound impact on the overall reactivity or selectivity of the catalyst. Here we shall deal with a few prominent examples of such effects. 

A real catalyst is now prepared and it is assumed that, as described above, all the metal particles consist of Ru covered by Ni, which exposes solely the Ni(lll) surface. We now want to estimate the area of the metal by adsorbing CO at 300 K. It is found that the surface is saturated with CO at this temperature when 3.4 mL CO (measured at 1 bar and 300 K) has been adsorbed on 1 g of the catalyst. 

We find, as described below, that these methyl + chlorine monolayers are active in forming methylchlorosilanes. Furthermore, studies of samples with and without promoters show changes in activity and selectivity which parallel those found over real catalysts, and the results are beginning to show how these additives influence the catalytic process. 

The UPS indicated structure change is associated with size reduction as the discontinuous gold film is transformed into rod-shape and spherical particles with size of 5-10 nm. Accordingly, with size reduction the activity displayed in CO oxidation is also altered the rate increased from 6.7 X 10 to 2 X 10 molmin cm . Consequently, not only the gold-reducible oxide interaction is responsible for the increased activity, but also size reduction. Indeed, small clusters themselves are able to activate the reaction components shown by theoretical calculations performed for 10-15-atom clusters, which can activate easily oxygen [177,200], but in real catalyst, even at the smallest active ensemble, it consists of a few hundreds atoms. 

Filtration of the catalytic mixture using pore membrane filters or filter aids allows the distinction between soluble and insoluble catalysts. Further catalytic activity analysis from the solution and insoluble residue can give information about the state of the real catalyst. In turn, centrifugation can be appropriated to separate metal NPs from the catalytic solutions, due to their high molecular weight and density, and thus to be separated from molecular species. 

To rationally govern the selectivity of a catalytic process, the elementary reaction steps on real catalyst surfaces must be identified. The use of well-defined organometallic compounds (possible intermediates in surface reactions) can be very useful in the determination of these steps. The use of kinetic modelling techniques combined with statistical analysis of kinetic... 

Similar considerations apply to the oxidation of ethanol, although one must take into account the breaking of the C—C bond, and the formation and involvement of different intermediates and side products. Ethanol oxidation will be the topic of Section 6.5. Section 6.6 will briefly summarize our main conclusions and discuss the relation of our surface science approach to real catalysts. 

Abstract Recent advances in the metal-catalyzed one-electron reduction reactions are described in this chapter. One-electron reduction induced by redox of early transition metals including titanium, vanadium, and lanthanide metals provides a variety of synthetic methods for carbon-carbon bond formation via radical species, as observed in the pinacol coupling, dehalogenation, and related radical-like reactions. The reversible catalytic cycle is achieved by a multi-component catalytic system in combination with a co-reductant and additives, which serve for the recycling, activation, and liberation of the real catalyst and the facilitation of the reaction steps. In the catalytic reductive transformations, the high stereoselectivity is attained by the design of the multi-component catalytic system. This article focuses mostly on the pinacol coupling reaction. 

The mechanism proposed involves hydrogenation of the C2 C3 double bond, formation of 2-vinylthiophenol by an E2 elimination, and hydrocarbon elimination by homolysis of the S—Caryi bond. This pathway rationalizes the primary formation of (104) observed in some HDS reactions of (102) over Co/Mo/S catalysts, as well as the kinetic evidence that the rate-determining step on real catalysts is the removal of surface sulfur.158-160... 

It is worth noting, that the mechanistic conclusions for the competing 4a — 9a and 4a — 10a routes drawn for the generic catalyst are corroborated for the real catalysts I-IV. The formation of cis-1,2-D VCB and cis,cis-COD is connected with very similar total activation barriers (i.e., relative to the favorable bis(r 3-,vyra) isomer of 4a) for each of the individual catalysts. Furthermore, cis,cis-COD is clearly seen to be the thermodynamically preferred product of the two cyclodimers. The difference in the thermodynamic stability between the [Ni°(ri4-cyclodimer)L] products 9a and 10a is most remarkable for IV with L = P(OPh)3 and amounts to 6.7 kcal moF1 (AG). This confirms the conclusion (cf. Section 4.6.1), that cis,cis-COD is generated as the predominant product along the reductive elimination routes that commence from the bis(ri3) precursor 4a. 

Intermolecular enyne metathesis has recently been developed using ethylene gas as the alkene [20]. The plan is shown in Scheme 10. In this reaction,benzyli-dene carbene complex 52b, which is commercially available [16b], reacts with ethylene to give ruthenacyclobutane 73. This then converts into methylene ruthenium complex 57, which is the real catalyst in this reaction. It reacts with the alkyne intermolecularly to produce ruthenacyclobutene 74, which is converted into vinyl ruthenium carbene complex 75. It must react with ethylene, not with the alkyne, to produce ruthenacyclobutane 76 via [2+2] cycloaddition. Then it gives diene 72, and methylene ruthenium complex 57 would be regenerated. If the methylene ruthenium complex 57 reacts with ethylene, ruthenacyclobutane 77 would be formed. However, this process is a so-called non-productive process, and it returns to ethylene and 57. The reaction was carried out in CH2Cl2 un-... 

It should be noted that the metal ion may enhance the oxidation rate of the substrate without being a real catalyst. In this case the oxidation of the substrate becomes faster because of the formation of reactive species in Eqs. (3) and (4), but Eq. (5) does not occur and the metal ion is not recycled to its original oxidation state. Consequently, the catalyst quickly loses its activity over the course of the reaction. 

Oxidative addition of molecular hydrogen was considered to be involved in the alkyne hydrogenations catalyzed by [Pd(Ar-bian)(dmf)] complexes (4 in Scheme 4.4) [41, 42]. Although the mechanism was not completely addressed, 4 was considered to be the pre-catalyst, the real catalyst most likely being the [Pd(Ar-bian)(alkyne)] complex 18 in Scheme 4.11. Alkyne complex 18 was then invoked to undergo oxidative addition of H2 followed by insertion/elimination or pairwise transfer of hydrogen atoms, giving rise to the alkene-complex 19. 

Is a Cluster the Real Catalyst Fragmentation and Aggregation Phenomena... 

The catalytic properties of a surface are determined by its composition and structure on the atomic scale. Hence, it is not sufficient to know that a surface consists of a metal and a promoter, say iron and potassium, but it is essential to know the exact structure of the iron surface, including defects, steps, etc., as well as the exact locations of the promoter atoms. Thus, from a fundamental point of view, the ultimate goal of catalyst characterization should be to look at the surface atom by atom, and under reaction conditions. The well-defined surfaces of single crystals offer the best likelihood of atom-by-atom characterization, although occasionally atomic scale information can be obtained from real catalysts under in situ conditions as well, as the examples in Chapter 9 show. 

---