Spectacular technological progress has been made in the last few years through thedevelopment of new materials such as «geopolymers», and new techniques, such as «sol-gel». New state-of-the-art materials designed with the help of geopolymerization reactions are opening up new applications and procedures and transforming ideas that have been taken for granted in inorganic chemistry. High temperature techniques arc no longer necessary to obtain materials which are ceramic-like in their structures and properties

Geopolymers : inorganic polymeric new materials

Zeolites and catalysis

Identification and characterization of catalytic active sites are the prerequisites for an atomic-level understanding of the catalytic mechanism and rational design of high-performance heterogeneous catalysts. Indirect evidence in recent reports suggests that platinum (Pt) single atoms are exceptionally active catalytic sites. We demonstrate that infrared spectroscopy can be a fast and convenient characterization method with which to directly distinguish and quantify Pt single atoms from nanoparticles. In addition, we directly observe that only Pt nanoparticles show activity for carbon monoxide (CO) oxidation and water-gas shift at low temperatures, whereas Pt single atoms behave as spectators. The lack of catalytic activity of Pt single atoms can be partly attributed to the strong binding of CO molecules.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/early/2015/09/02/science.aac6368.full.pdf

Identification of active sites in CO oxidation and water-gas shift over supported Pt catalysts

Layered double hydroxides (LDH) intercalated with metal coordination compounds and oxometalates

Note: Chevron, Energy Technology Company, 100 Chevron Way, Richmond, California 94802-0627 Reference EPFL-ARTICLE-200588doi:10.1021/cr8002642 URL: http://pubs3.acs.org/acs/journals/doilookup?in_doi=10.1021/cr8002642 URL: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/cr8002642 Record created on 2014-08-14, modified on 2017-05-12

Walter Loewenstein

Papers

The distribution of aluminum in the tetrahedra of silicates and aluminates

Boron in tetrahedra of borates and borosilicates