TiO2 photocatalysis and related surface phenomena

"Space—the final frontier." This preamble to a well-known television series captures the challenge encountered not only in space travel adventures, but also in the field of porous materials, which aims to control the size, shape and uniformity of the porous space and the atoms and molecules that define it. The past decade has seen significant advances in the ability to fabricate new porous solids with ordered structures from a wide range of different materials. This has resulted in materials with unusual properties and broadened their application range beyond the traditional use as catalysts and adsorbents. In fact, porous materials now seem set to contribute to developments in areas ranging from microelectronics to medical diagnosis.

Ordered porous materials for emerging applications

Photoinduced reactivity of titanium dioxide

The escalating level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is one of the most pressing environmental concerns of our age. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) from large point sources such as power plants is one option for reducing anthropogenic CO(2) emissions; however, currently the capture alone will increase the energy requirements of a plant by 25-40%. This Review highlights the challenges for capture technologies which have the greatest likelihood of reducing CO(2) emissions to the atmosphere, namely postcombustion (predominantly CO(2)/N(2) separation), precombustion (CO(2)/H(2)) capture, and natural gas sweetening (CO(2)/CH(4)). The key factor which underlies significant advancements lies in improved materials that perform the separations. In this regard, the most recent developments and emerging concepts in CO(2) separations by solvent absorption, chemical and physical adsorption, and membranes, amongst others, will be discussed, with particular attention on progress in the burgeoning field of metal-organic frameworks.

Carbon Dioxide Capture: Prospects for New Materials

The interest in heterogeneous photocatalysis is intense and increasing, as shown by the number of publications on this theme which regularly appear in this journal, and the fact that over 2000 papers have been published on this topic since 1981. This article is an overview of the field of semiconductor photocatalysis : a brief examination of its roots, achievements and possible future. The semiconductor titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) features predominantly in past and present work on semiconductor photocatalysis; as a result, in the most of the examples selected in this overview to illustrate various points the semiconductor is TiO 2 .

An overview of semiconductor photocatalysis

Spillover in Heterogeneous Catalysis

Fundamentals and applications of pervaporation through zeolite membranes

In a typical temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) experiment on a supported metal catalyst, a small amount of catalyst (10–200 mg) is contained in a reactor that can be heated by a furnace. An inert gas, usually helium at atmospheric pressure, flows over the catalyst. Following pretreatment to obtain a reduced catalyst, a gas is adsorbed on the surface, usually by pulse injections of the adsorbate into the carrier gas upstream from the reactor. After the excess gas is flushed out, the catalyst is heated to create a linear rise in temperature with time. A small thermocouple inserted in the catalyst measures the temperature and a detector downstream measures the change in the inert gas stream. The ideal detector is a mass spectrometer which measures the composition of the effluent stream as a function of catalyst temperature. Because of the high carrier-gas flow rate, the detector response is proportional to the rate of desorption if diffusion and readsorption are not limiting.

Temperature-Programmed Desorption and Reaction: Applications to Supported Catalysts

SAPO-34 membranes for CO2/CH4 separation

SAPO-34 membranes were prepared by in situ crystallization on alpha-Al2O3 porous supports. The crystal size of the seeds was effectively controlled in the 0.7 to 8.5 micron range by employing different structure-directing agents. Seeds smaller than 1 micron produced membranes with CO2/CH4 separation selectivities higher than 170 and unprecedented CO2 permeances as high as 2.0 x 10(-6) mol/m2.s.Pa at 295 K and a feed pressure of 224 kPa. The membranes effectively separated CO2/CH4 mixtures up to 1.7 MPa.

John L. Falconer

Papers

Spillover in Heterogeneous Catalysis

Fundamentals and applications of pervaporation through zeolite membranes

Temperature-Programmed Desorption and Reaction: Applications to Supported Catalysts

SAPO-34 membranes for CO2/CH4 separation

Alumina-supported SAPO-34 membranes for CO2/CH4 separation.