Thermodynamic properties, single phase catalysts

The question arises, why do bi- or multi-phasic catalysts generally show better activity and selectivity than the active phase alone The aim of this paper is to answer this question by exploring the role of interfacial effects. We shall examine first how the thermodynamic and structural properties of one phase influence its interactions, not only with the gaseous reactants, but also with coexisting solid phases as a result of its bulk, surface, and defect structure. We will also examine the conditions necessary for these interactions and set up a structural classification of the main components of mild oxidation catalysts. This will lead finally to a discussion of the role of interfacial effects in catalyst performance using some illustrative examples. Thermodynamic and Structural Properties of Single Phase Catalysts... 

Important classes of advanced materials that are of great interest include functional polyolefins, catalysts, blends and composites. The variety of PO-based materials is truly astounding. Not all materials are crystalline, mono-phasic, and composed of a single component. Some are amorphous and some are in the form of films, while others are complex mixtures of several components and phases. Today, composites and polymer blends occupy a prime position as high-performance PO materials. Therefore, recent advances in the following topics have been covered main industrial and novel routes of synthesis, new materials, thermodynamic properties of PO solutions, surface... 

Examples of synergistic effects are now very numerous in catalysis. We shall restrict ourselves to metallic oxide-type catalysts for selective (amm)oxidation and oxidative dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons, and to supported metals, in the case of the three-way catalysts for abatement of automotive pollutants. A complementary example can be found with Ziegler-Natta polymerization of ethylene on transition metal chlorides [1]. To our opinion, an actual synergistic effect can be claimed only when the following conditions are filled (i), when the catalytic system is, thermodynamically speaking, biphasic (or multiphasic), (ii), when the catalytic properties are drastically enhanced for a particular composition, while they are (comparatively) poor for each single component. Therefore, neither promotors in solid solution in the main phase nor solid solutions themselves are directly concerned. Multicomponent catalysts, as the well known multimetallic molybdates used in ammoxidation of propene to acrylonitrile [2, 3], and supported oxide-type catalysts [4-10], provide the most numerous cases to be considered. Supported monolayer catalysts now widely used in selective oxidation can be considered as the limit of a two-phase system. 

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