Advanced nanomaterials for catalysis: Current progress in fine chemical synthesis, hydrocarbon processing, and renewable energy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiec.2020.09.028Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Recent advancement of nanomaterials for catalysis application.

  • Nanocatalysts for fine chemical synthesis, hydrogen processing, and renewable energy.

  • Fundamental aspects of the mechanism, activity, and selectivity of the nanocatalysts.

  • Challenges and future outlook for large-scale industrial applications.

Abstract

The application of advanced nanomaterials for catalysis has attracted much attention as it offers many benefits due to their unique physicochemical properties. Nevertheless, the utilization of these nanomaterials for scalable industrial applications is still challenging, partly due to the lack of understanding in their catalytic mechanism. This review serves to highlight current progress on the application of nanomaterials for catalysis applications, specifically in fine chemical synthesis, hydrocarbon processing, and renewable energy. Here, the performance of different types of nanomaterials in various reactions is summarized. Besides, comprehensive discussions of their catalytic mechanism are also provided. Furthermore, several challenges and future outlook for the application of nanomaterials in the catalysis industry are also presented. In most cases, noble metal-based nanomaterials such as Pd, Pt, and Au, were still considered as one of the most active catalysts in various industrial processes. Nevertheless, the most recent progress suggested that there are still tremendous opportunities and prospects in developing different nanocatalysts based on earth-abundant elements. It is also identified that several techniques, such as heterostructuring, functionalization, and doping, were proven to be able to enhance the catalytic activity of the nanomaterials.

Introduction

It is no secret that catalyst plays a pivotal role in various industrial processes. Typically, a catalyst is selected not only based on its ability to efficiently facilitate the reaction but also based on other parameters such as toxicity, economic factor, recoverability, chemical stability, and environmental friendliness [1], [2]. In general, catalysts that are commonly used in industry can be categorized as homogeneous, heterogeneous, and biocatalyst. Homogeneous catalysts can be defined as the catalyst that exists in the same phase as its substrate, while heterogeneous catalysts exist in the different phase [3], [4]. Meanwhile, the involvement of macromolecular substances derived from living organisms, such as enzymes, can be classified as biocatalytic processes [5], [6]. However, the utilization of heterogeneous catalysts for large scale industrial applications has attracted much attention since it offers several additional benefits such as more selectivity, easy to functionalize, easy to recover, and better yield [7]. Therefore, tremendous efforts have recently been carried out both in the development of new catalytic materials or by optimizing the existing catalysts through various functionalization to fabricate better catalytic materials with excellent catalytic performance.

During the past several years, rapid advancement in nanotechnology has opened a new prospect on the application of various types of advanced nanomaterials as a catalyst for many industrial-related processes. It is widely known that many unique and new physicochemical properties could be obtained when the size of a material is reduced into the nanoscale. For instance, alterations in several physical properties, such as optical, mechanical, and thermal properties, are observed in several types of nanomaterials due to the increase of surface to volume ratio [8]. In most of the metallic nanocrystals, the very small grain size is believed to be responsible for the enhancement of the mechanical strength as a result of the vast interface area within the materials. Furthermore, unique optical, magnetic, and electronic properties, such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and superparamagnetism, can also be obtained when the size of the particles is in the same magnitude to the wavelength of an electron. This effect is commonly known as the quantum confinement effect. Additionally, many reports have also suggested that the superior activity of nanocatalysts can also be associated with their ability to allow the reaction to being carried out at milder conditions [2], [9], [10]. Other reported benefits also include the ability to reduce the occurrence of side reactions, the ability to control the selectivity of the reaction towards the desired product, high rate of catalyst recycling, and high return of energy consumption [1].

Despite the aforementioned potential, the utilization of nanomaterials-based catalysts in scalable industrial applications is still very challenging. This is partly due to the lack of a full understanding of the mechanism of how these nanomaterials can efficiently facilitate various kinds of industrial processes. Besides, the concept of catalytic mechanism is also essential for developing an efficient catalyst that exhibits not only good catalytic activity but also excellent selectivity. Therefore, recent progress on the development of nanomaterials for catalysis application in scalable industrial processes is presented in this review. Here, the performance of nanocatalysts in facilitating several industrial-related chemical reactions, i.e., fine chemical synthesis, hydrocarbon processing, and renewable energy generation, are comprehensively discussed. These reactions were selected as they are considered as the most common industrial processes that could potentially be optimized by the utilization of nanocatalysts. In this review, the application of different types of advanced nanomaterials, such as metallic, alloys, and metal oxide nanoparticles, nanocomposites, nano-heterostructures, and carbon-based nanomaterials, was highlighted. Furthermore, the catalytic mechanisms on how these nanomaterials provide superiority in their catalytic performances are also highlighted to enable researchers to design better and suitable solutions for various industrial-related problems. Finally, this article also discusses several vital challenges and future outlook for the application of such materials in large-scale industrial processes.

Section snippets

Hydrogenation reactions

Hydrogenation reaction has been widely considered as one of the most critical reactions in industry. It is extensively employed in various industrial processes to synthesize a wide variety of products, including fine chemicals. In the absence of a catalyst, most of the hydrogenation reactions are thermodynamically unfavorable and can only be done at extreme conditions, i.e., high pressure and temperature. Therefore, catalytic materials are often added to facilitate the reaction. In most common

In-situ catalytic upgrading

The decline in conventional light crude oil reserves and the growing global demand have attracted extensive research of alternative resources. In the past, heavy oil and bitumen were considered unattractive resources. However, they have currently become essential resources for the production of valuable chemicals and fuels [113]. Various methods have been proposed for the recovery of the heavy oil and are mainly categorized into non-thermal and thermal methods [114], [115]. The most common

Biomass conversion

Biomass has been considered as a renewable, sustainable, and environmentally amicable resource. Biomass is composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, which can be transformed into fuels and several valuable chemicals. The thermochemical conversions such as pyrolysis, gasification, direct combustion, and liquefaction have been applied to produce clean energy from biomass. These processes comprised several catalytic reactions involving various types of catalysts, i.e., noble metal, metal

Challenges and Future Outlook

As comprehensively highlighted in the previous sections, the ability to design various kinds of advanced functional nanomaterials has enabled researchers to revolutionize many traditional inefficient industrial processes, especially in fine chemical synthesis, hydrocarbon processing, and renewable energy. In this review, we showed that various types of nanomaterials had been proven to exhibit not only excellent catalytic activity but also efficient selectivity towards the formation of the

Conclusion

In summary, a comprehensive review of the recent progress for the application of advanced nanomaterials for the catalytic industry has been comprehensively presented in this article. In this review, we have listed several types of active nanocatalysts that are often used in various reactions in fine chemical synthesis industries, such as hydrogenation, oxidation, C-C coupling, C-N bond formation, and cyclization reactions. Furthermore, the application of nanocatalysts in both in situ catalytic

Declaration of interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Acknowledgment

MK would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Directorate of Research and Development, University of Indonesia through Hibah Program Penelitian Kolaborasi Internasional (PPKI) 2020 (No. NKB-3143/UN2.RST/HKP.05.00/2020). GTMK is grateful for the funding by Institut Teknologi Bandung through Hibah Riset Kelompok Keahlian Kategori B (Riset KK-B) 2020 (No. 2H/I.1.C01/PL/2020). MMI thanks to the PMDSU scholarship from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Republic of

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