Abstract
Catalysis, from its roots in petrochemical refining and conversion, has emerged as a transdisciplinary field that now encompasses synthesis of materials and molecules that enable applications in energy conversion and storage, environmental remediation, medicine, plastics, and fertilizer production, among numerous others. A handful of disciplines can claim relevance and success over such an extended period of time and continue to claim a preeminent role in defining the state-of-the-art in science and technology. Syncretic and rapid advancements in formulation and spectroscopic characterization of materials and molecules useful as catalysts, high-level density functional and molecular orbital theory calculations, and a strong foundation in concepts of physical chemistry, thermodynamics, and chemical kinetics offer new and abundant opportunities at the present day for addressing the grand challenge of controlling chemical transformations using catalysis. We examine what we have learned of concepts that underpin heterogeneous catalysis but more importantly, how we learned to archive our knowledge in context of a set of best practices and standards that have emerged in the course of our learnings—ones we seek to highlight herein. Our perspective emphasizes concepts in synthesis, characterization, kinetics, and theory, because these four elements combined enable description of molecular acts that happen on surfaces and how fast they occur. In revisiting best practices in heterogeneous catalysis in these sub-fields and in authorship and peer review we aspire to augment clarity, reproducibility, and rigor in the science and practice of catalysis.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 419-429 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Catalysis |
Volume | 405 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Mr. Benjamin Yeh (University of Minnesota) for helpful technical discussions. This work was funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Science, Catalysis Science Program (Award DE-SC00019028 ). Acknowledgment is made to the Donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (PRF # 62369-ND5) for partial support of this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Inc.