ABSTRACT
The use of catalytic processes in pollution abatement and resource recovery is widespread and of significant economic importance for the realization of sustainable chemistry/ industry (1). As has widely been recognized, there are five areas where environmentally benign catalysis would have significant impact:
1. Control of emissions of environmentally unacceptable compounds, especially in flue gases and car exhaust gases
2. Conversion of solid or liquid waste into environmentally acceptable products 3. Selective manufacture of alternative products that can replace environmentally harmful
compounds, such as some chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) 4. Replacement of environmentally hazardous catalysts in existing processes 5. Development of catalysts that enable new technological routes to valuable
chemical products without the formation of polluting byproducts The targets of environmentally benign catalysis lie in air, water, and soil. This chapter will focus primarily on the first topic, that of heterogeneous catalysis for unacceptable materials emitted into the air. This is because the composition and quality of fuels, as well as emission control during fuel utilization, are strongly dependent on the application of heterogeneous catalysis. However, problems and opportunities in water chemistry are also of increasing importance (2-4). The amount of water consumption in industrialized countries is continuously increasing, and in several countries the depletion of underground sources and/or their increasing level of contamination has become of great concern (2). Rational use of water resources is one of key issues for sustainable growth. Although technologies for treating recycled rinse water are available commercially, there
are limitations in terms of cost of chemicals/technology, efficiency of removal of pollutants, production of side streams, severity of operation, range of conditions for operation, etc., for which innovative solutions are required. The use of applicable solid catalysts are expected to have significant impact on overcoming or reducing these limitations, especially in terms of oxidation processes (3) and heterogeneous photocatalysis (4).
