Editorial (Thematic Issue: Innovative Nanoporous Materials for Heterogeneous Catalysis)

Title:Editorial (Thematic Issue: Innovative Nanoporous Materials for Heterogeneous Catalysis)

Volume: 18 Issue: 10

Author(s): Lin-Bing Sun

Affiliation:

Abstract: Heterogeneous catalysis is an important field of organic chemistry and has some obvious advantages such as easy separation, no corrosion, and negligible waste production. It is well known that heterogeneous catalysis has played a significant role in the synthesis of organics and fine chemicals. In recent years, however, the technique of heterogeneous catalysis has also been extended to the field of energy and environment, for example, catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide to fuels as well as photocatalytic degradation of pollutants. There is no doubt that catalysts are the key point of heterogeneous catalysis. The last decade has witnessed incredible advances in novel nanoporous materials, which open up new opportunities to catalytic processes. Nanoporous materials with abundant pore structures (e.g. zeolites and mesoporous silicas) provide an ideal accommodation for catalytically active sites. Great progress has been made in the development of highperformance heterogeneous catalysts based on nanoporous materials. This special issue will cover recent advances and new trends in the field of nanoporous materials for heterogeneous catalysis. The nanoporous materials vary from zeolites with micropores to mesoporous silicas and organosilicas with mesopores. In addition to inorganic nanoporous materials, organic-inorganic hybrids will be covered in this special issue as well. Particular interest will be paid to rational, novel, and systematic development of materials with particular catalytic properties for organic reactions.

Due to the importance of chiral catalysts in organic chemistry, the fabrication of nanoporous materials using chiral building blocks and their applications in asymmetric catalysis were firstly reviewed by Silva et al. Next, Wu et al. dealt with enantioselective hydrogenation catalyzed by chiral nanoporous materials. Thereafter, several useful advanced functional materials for heterogeneous catalysis were covered. Kaskel et al. systematically summarized the design of functional nanostructured carbons for heterogeneous catalysis. Romero-Salguero et al. reviewed periodic mesoporous organosilicas as catalysts for organic reactions. Sun et al. dealt with the preparation of mesoporous solid superbases by using metal oxide interlayers, which can catalyze diverse organic reactions under mild conditions. Wang et al. reviewed catalytic applications of the zeolite ZSM-5 with hierarchical pore structure. It is known that pore engineering techniques can tailor pore sizes of nanoporous materials precisely, which can optimize different reactions through diffusivity control. In Tsai’s review, they summarized pore engineering methods for the enhancement of zeolite catalytic performances on aromatics conversion.

The use of heterogeneous nanoporous catalysts in energy and environment-related organic chemistry has received increasing attention recently. In this special issue, Yao et al. reviewed the conversion of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, to valuable fuels. Lu et al. summarized the applications of carbon-based materials in the photocatalytic fields. Also Yao et al. presented recent advances in liquid-phase heterogeneous photocatalysis for organic synthesis.

Cite this article as:

Sun Lin-Bing, Editorial (Thematic Issue: Innovative Nanoporous Materials for Heterogeneous Catalysis), Current Organic Chemistry 2014; 18 (10) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/138527281810140717123649