ABSTRACT
The activity of heterogeneous catalysts is known to be mainly
a surface property. It is therefore often possible to reduce the
amount of active components without affecting the overall activity
by increasing its surface-to-volume ratio, commonly referred to as
its dispersion [1]. In fact metal dispersion (D), namely the ratio between surface metal atoms (NS) and total metal atoms (NT), is a critical factor for several catalytic reactions and generally it has to
be as high as possible:
D = NS NT
(9.1)
Figure 9.1 Relationship between dispersion and particle size.
