ABSTRACT
The development of new chemical processes characterized by reduced environmental and economic impacts is one of the challenges of the current century. The green chemistry is a valuable tool focused not only on the search and discovery of new catalytic, efficient and selective chemical reactions but also the development of new methodologies able to minimize the waste production or even the recycling or valourization of these reactions (i.e., biomass residues). In this sense, at the end of the 1990s, nanocatalysis emerged as a discipline which could be considered as the interface between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. J.M. Thomas recently revises the advantages of using heterogeneous catalysts which offer the possibility of multifunctionalization. Furthermore, the author highlights that certain chemical processes only takes efficiently place in the presence of heterogeneous systems (Thomas 2010). Due to the severe regulations for environmental protection, the development of new ecofriendly processes for the production of fine chemicals which can be commercialized are desirable. Heterogeneous catalysis can then highly contribute to the sustainability and economy of the industrial chemical process (Holderic 2000). Major efforts at this respect have been made towards the design of new heterogeneous nanocatalysts by immobilizing the homogeneous ones onto the surfaces or even intercalating them within, so that they exhibit improved catalytic 26performances but also improved the understanding of the chemical processes (Collins and Horváth 2011).
