ABSTRACT
Owing to its inert properties, gold is a well-known precious metal and popular in jewelry and decoration. ough it is being found to be active as a catalyst only in a recent few decades, the early examples existed in 1970s, though signi cantly less active than transition metals [1]. e signi cant e ect of gold as a catalyst was studied by Haruta et al. in 1987 who found that gold supported on TiO2 being very active for CO oxidation at low temperature [2] and oxidation of propene to propene oxide [3] (see Figure 17.1) and also by Hutchings et al. through the hydrochlorination of ethyne to vinyl chloride [4]; both reactions discussed were heterogeneous in nature.
