Light alkanes tend to be resistant to many forms of activation. The horizontal approach of the present book covers homogeneous, heterogeneous and biological catalysis, thus allowing readers to gain an awareness of progress and ideas in research areas different from their own. The book contains both general chapters, giving an overview of the subject, and specialised contributions that deal with the details and state of the art. A specialist report is also included which gives a critical insight into current progress and discusses future prospects and major challenges. Audience: Newcomers and senior researchers in the field of alkane activation. The mixed theoretical and practical approach will be of interest to researchers and industrialists alike.

Catalysts are central in modern industrial chemistry and there is an urgent need to develop new catalysts. Such a rapid pace of development brings with it a new set of challenges at all levels of research, from synthesis and characterization to testing and modelling. This book reviews the current status of combinatorial catalysis, scientific catalyst design techniques, methods for preparing inorganic combinatorial libraries, experimental design methods, data processing, system modelling an simulation, and catalyst testing. The individual contributions reveal the development of high throughput catalyst design and test methods and identify the main challenges in the field, including new catalyst preparation techniques, rapid performance evaluation, and new microreactor configurations. Readership: All those working in catalytic process analysis and development. The extensive review of catalysis principles is especially relevant for postgraduate students seeking to pursue studies in catalysis.

Intensive research on zeolites, during the past thirty years, has resulted in a deep understanding of their chemistry and in a true zeolite science, including synthesis, structure, chemical and physical properties, and catalysis. These studies are the basis for the development and growth of several industrial processes applying zeolites for selective sorption, separation, and catalysis. In 1983, a NATO Advanced Study Institute was organized in Alcabideche (portugal) to establish the State-of-the-Art in Zeolite Science and Technology and to contribute to a better understanding of the structural properties of zeolites, the configurational constraints they may exert, and their effects in adsorption, diffusion, and catalysis. Since then, zeolite science has witnessed an almost exponential growth in published papers and patents, dealing with both fundamentals issues and original applications. The proposal of new procedures for zeolite synthesis, the development of novel and sophisticated physical techniques for zeolite characterization, the discovery of new zeolitic and related microporous materials, progresses in quantum chemistry and molecular modeling of zeolites, and the application of zeolites as catalysts for organic reactions have prompted increasing interest among the scientific community. An important and harmonious interaction between various domains of Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering resulted therefrom.

High throughput experimentation has met great success in drug design but it has, so far, been scarcely used in the field ofcatalysis. We present in this book the outcome of a NATO ASI meeting that was held in Vilamoura, Portugal, between July 15 and 28, 2001, with the objective of delineating and consolidating the principles and methods underpinning accelerated catalyst design, evaluation, and development. There is a need to make the underlying principles of this new methodology more widely understood and to make it available in a coherent and integrated format. The latter objective is particularly important to the young scientists who will constitute the new catalysis researchers generation. Indeed, this field which is at the frontier offundamental science and may be a renaissance for catalysis, is one which is much more complex than classical catalysis itself. It implies a close collaboration between scientists from many disciplines (chemistry, physics, chemical and mechanical engineering, automation, robotics, and scientific computing in general). In addition, this emerging area of science is also of paramount industrial importance, as progress in this area would collapse the time necessary to discover new catalysts or improve existing ones.

Energy and feedstock materials for the chemical industry are in increasing demand and, with constraints related to the availability and use of oil, the energy and chemical industry is undergoing considerable changes. In recent years, major restructuring has occurred in the oil, petrochemical, and chemical industry, with increasing attention devoted to the use of natural gas, methane in particular, as a chemical feedstock rather than just as a fuel. The conversion of remote natural gas into liquid fuels or other transportable chemicals is a challenge to industrial catalysis. Few processes exist so far with the major ones involving the conversion of natural gas to synthesis gas by steam reforming, CO2 reforming, or partial oxidation, followed by the syntheses of methanol, hydrocarbons (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis), or ammonia.

In this book, a comprehensive overview of the field of processing natural gas is given, through a series of chapters written by leading scientists and engineers in the field. New developments are discussed and current work relevant to the area is shown by a series of recent works by researchers working in this and related fields.

Intensive research on zeolites, during the past thirty years, has resulted in a deep understanding of their chemistry and in a true zeolite science, including synthesis, structure, chemical and physical properties, and catalysis. These studies are the basis for the development and growth of several industrial processes applying zeolites for selective sorption, separation, and catalysis. In 1983, a NATO Advanced Study Institute was organized in Alcabideche (portugal) to establish the State-of-the-Art in Zeolite Science and Technology and to contribute to a better understanding of the structural properties of zeolites, the configurational constraints they may exert, and their effects in adsorption, diffusion, and catalysis. Since then, zeolite science has witnessed an almost exponential growth in published papers and patents, dealing with both fundamentals issues and original applications. The proposal of new procedures for zeolite synthesis, the development of novel and sophisticated physical techniques for zeolite characterization, the discovery of new zeolitic and related microporous materials, progresses in quantum chemistry and molecular modeling of zeolites, and the application of zeolites as catalysts for organic reactions have prompted increasing interest among the scientific community. An important and harmonious interaction between various domains of Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering resulted therefrom.

Light alkanes tend to be resistant to many forms of activation. The horizontal approach of the present book covers homogeneous, heterogeneous and biological catalysis, thus allowing readers to gain an awareness of progress and ideas in research areas different from their own. The book contains both general chapters, giving an overview of the subject, and specialised contributions that deal with the details and state of the art. A specialist report is also included which gives a critical insight into current progress and discusses future prospects and major challenges. Audience: Newcomers and senior researchers in the field of alkane activation. The mixed theoretical and practical approach will be of interest to researchers and industrialists alike.

Energy and feedstock materials for the chemical industry are in increasing demand and, with constraints related to the availability and use of oil, the energy and chemical industry is undergoing considerable changes. In recent years, major restructuring has occurred in the oil, petrochemical, and chemical industry, with increasing attention devoted to the use of natural gas, methane in particular, as a chemical feedstock rather than just as a fuel. The conversion of remote natural gas into liquid fuels or other transportable chemicals is a challenge to industrial catalysis. Few processes exist so far with the major ones involving the conversion of natural gas to synthesis gas by steam reforming, CO2 reforming, or partial oxidation, followed by the syntheses of methanol, hydrocarbons (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis), or ammonia.

In this book, a comprehensive overview of the field of processing natural gas is given, through a series of chapters written by leading scientists and engineers in the field. New developments are discussed and current work relevant to the area is shown by a series of recent works by researchers working in this and related fields.

High throughput experimentation has met great success in drug design but it has, so far, been scarcely used in the field ofcatalysis. We present in this book the outcome of a NATO ASI meeting that was held in Vilamoura, Portugal, between July 15 and 28, 2001, with the objective of delineating and consolidating the principles and methods underpinning accelerated catalyst design, evaluation, and development. There is a need to make the underlying principles of this new methodology more widely understood and to make it available in a coherent and integrated format. The latter objective is particularly important to the young scientists who will constitute the new catalysis researchers generation. Indeed, this field which is at the frontier offundamental science and may be a renaissance for catalysis, is one which is much more complex than classical catalysis itself. It implies a close collaboration between scientists from many disciplines (chemistry, physics, chemical and mechanical engineering, automation, robotics, and scientific computing in general). In addition, this emerging area of science is also of paramount industrial importance, as progress in this area would collapse the time necessary to discover new catalysts or improve existing ones.

Catalysts are central in modern industrial chemistry and there is an urgent need to develop new catalysts. Such a rapid pace of development brings with it a new set of challenges at all levels of research, from synthesis and characterization to testing and modelling. This book reviews the current status of combinatorial catalysis, scientific catalyst design techniques, methods for preparing inorganic combinatorial libraries, experimental design methods, data processing, system modelling an simulation, and catalyst testing. The individual contributions reveal the development of high throughput catalyst design and test methods and identify the main challenges in the field, including new catalyst preparation techniques, rapid performance evaluation, and new microreactor configurations. Readership: All those working in catalytic process analysis and development. The extensive review of catalysis principles is especially relevant for postgraduate students seeking to pursue studies in catalysis.