BACKGROUND

 

Spatially structured systems, extensively represented in biology, play a significant growing role also in chemistry, catalysis and chemical technology. From the scientific viewpoint the ability to replace the random structures and processes with the ordered ones presents a highly challenging issue, with application potential extending from material engineering and precision technology to the life sciences and medicine.
Structured catalysts and reactors appear to be one of the most significant and promising developments in the field of heterogeneous catalysis and chemical engineering of the recent years.
They have already found numerous applications ranging from car afterburners (this way monolithic converters became the most widespread type of catalytic reactors) to large-scale chemical technologies for environmental protection. In order to comply with the current and upcoming polluting emissions regulations for Diesel vehicles, the automotive industry nowadays relies on innovative oxidative and deNOx structured catalytic converters, integrated with particulate filters.
Structured catalysts can also greatly intensify chemical processes, resulting in smaller, safer, cleaner and more energy efficient technologies. Multifunctional reactors, in which chemical conversion is advantageously integrated with another unit operation, are largely based on structured catalytic systems, such as open crossflow catalysts for reactive distillation units or catalytic membranes for membrane reactors. Microreactors are another area of growing interest which relies on structuring of catalysts.