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Recognizing the best catalyst for a reaction

Nature Reviews Chemistry volume 7, pages 287–295 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Heterogeneous catalysis is immensely important, providing access to materials essential for the well-being of society, and improved catalysts are continuously required. New catalysts are frequently tested under different conditions making it difficult to determine the best catalyst. Here we describe a general approach to identify the best catalyst using a data set based on all reactions under kinetic control to calculate a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs are normalized to take into account the variation in reaction conditions. Plots of the normalized KPIs are then used to demonstrate the best catalyst using two case studies: (i) acetylene hydrochlorination, a reaction of current interest for vinyl chloride manufacture, and (ii) the selective oxidation of methane to methanol using O2 in water, a reaction that has attracted very recent attention in the academic literature.

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Fig. 1: Acetylene hydrochlorination publications.
Fig. 2: Acetylene hydrochlorination reaction data based on key performance indicators.
Fig. 3: Selective methane oxidation reaction data based on key performance indicator.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Johnson Matthey for financial support and the Max Planck Centre for the Fundamentals on Heterogeneous Catalysis for support. We also thank the EPSRC and UK Catalysis Hub (grants EP/K014714/1, EP/K014714/1, EP/K014668/1, EP/K014706/1, EP/H000925/1 and EP/I019693/1).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Anna Lazaridou, Louise R. Smith.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Centre on the Fundamentals of Heterogeneous Catalysis FUNCAT, Cardiff Catalysis Institute, School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Anna Lazaridou, Louise R. Smith, Samuel Pattisson, Nicholas F. Dummer & Graham J. Hutchings

  2. Johnson Matthey, Catalyst Technologies, London, UK

    Joost J. Smit

  3. Johnson Matthey, Catalyst Technologies, Billingham, UK

    Peter Johnston

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  1. Anna Lazaridou
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Contributions

A.L., L.R.S. and G.J.H. performed the literature search and collated all the data. All authors contributed substantially to the writing, reviewing and editing of the manuscript before submission.

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Correspondence to Graham J. Hutchings.

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Competing interests

TP.J. and J.J.S. are employees of Johnson Matthey, a company that commercially supplies a gold catalyst for acetylene hydrochlorination for use in China. G.J.H., A.L., L.R.S. and S.P. are supported by Johnson Matthey in their research on acetylene hydrochlorination.

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Lazaridou, A., Smith, L.R., Pattisson, S. et al. Recognizing the best catalyst for a reaction. Nat Rev Chem 7, 287–295 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-023-00470-5

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