Preface
In the last two decades we have witnessed a spectacular growth of nanoparticle
catalysis and clearly in the new series of Molecular Catalysis this topic is of great
interest. A look at the numbers shows that “spectacular growth” is even an
understatement. Thirty years ago, the number of hits for “nanoparticle” and
“catalysis” found in Scifinder or other search machines is zero, which does not
mean that it did not exist at all, but it was not documented as such. Twenty years
ago, barely one publication a week appeared on this topic, but today the number
amounts to almost 200 publications per week, and an accumulated total of almost
90,000 indicates what size of research area we are dealing with. No way, as in many
other fields today, we can put together comprehensive volumes on nanoparticle
catalysis. The area is also extremely diverse, in materials, their preparation, their
use, and the catalytic reactions explored. The number of catalytic reactions explored
is much smaller than the number of materials developed, but the diversity is so
enormous that general lessons are hard to be deduced from the results. Thus, from
the one million of catalysis results on nanoparticle catalysis it will be difficult to
develop general theories, not in the least because we do not report our results in a
format suited for later machine learning. The area outnumbers homogeneous
catalysis, while comparison with heterogeneous catalysis is less clear due to
overlap. Compared to both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis new catalytic
activity is found for nanosized particles; no need to explain this here. Furthermore,
the number of metal atoms as potential participants as active centers is larger in
nanoparticles than in particles of micrometer size. It is often argued that an
advantage of MNPs over molecular homogeneous catalysts is their ease of separation, but we doubt that, and MNPs for industrial use need to be immobilized in
most reactions. In the last decade the two classic areas of homogeneous and
heterogeneous have found that MNP catalysis brings the two closer to one another;
in particular ligand modification and support influences have led to an increase of
understanding in catalysis in a broad sense.
This book provides the reader a rapid overview of the latest developments in this
field of catalysis with chapters representing the relevant activities. A broad area has
been covered describing not only the established topics in depth, but also several
v
In the last two decades we have witnessed a spectacular growth of nanoparticle
catalysis and clearly in the new series of Molecular Catalysis this topic is of great
interest. A look at the numbers shows that “spectacular growth” is even an
understatement. Thirty years ago, the number of hits for “nanoparticle” and
“catalysis” found in Scifinder or other search machines is zero, which does not
mean that it did not exist at all, but it was not documented as such. Twenty years
ago, barely one publication a week appeared on this topic, but today the number
amounts to almost 200 publications per week, and an accumulated total of almost
90,000 indicates what size of research area we are dealing with. No way, as in many
other fields today, we can put together comprehensive volumes on nanoparticle
catalysis. The area is also extremely diverse, in materials, their preparation, their
use, and the catalytic reactions explored. The number of catalytic reactions explored
is much smaller than the number of materials developed, but the diversity is so
enormous that general lessons are hard to be deduced from the results. Thus, from
the one million of catalysis results on nanoparticle catalysis it will be difficult to
develop general theories, not in the least because we do not report our results in a
format suited for later machine learning. The area outnumbers homogeneous
catalysis, while comparison with heterogeneous catalysis is less clear due to
overlap. Compared to both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis new catalytic
activity is found for nanosized particles; no need to explain this here. Furthermore,
the number of metal atoms as potential participants as active centers is larger in
nanoparticles than in particles of micrometer size. It is often argued that an
advantage of MNPs over molecular homogeneous catalysts is their ease of separation, but we doubt that, and MNPs for industrial use need to be immobilized in
most reactions. In the last decade the two classic areas of homogeneous and
heterogeneous have found that MNP catalysis brings the two closer to one another;
in particular ligand modification and support influences have led to an increase of
understanding in catalysis in a broad sense.
This book provides the reader a rapid overview of the latest developments in this
field of catalysis with chapters representing the relevant activities. A broad area has
been covered describing not only the established topics in depth, but also several
v