Catalysis and Chemical Engineering:

Theoretical Bases and Selected Applications

Main objective:
Advanced training and harmonization of
vocational education in catalysis and
chemical engineering

Target audience:
Topsoe PhD Scholarship Program
participants
Young scientists and engineers specialized in
catalytic / chemical engineering R&D

Lecturers:
Russian scientists and university professors
Invited foreign speakers
Catalysis and Chemical Engineering:
Theoretical Bases and Selected Applications
Scope (tentative):
•Chemical kinetics
•Physics and Chemistry of solid
surfaces (including methods for
catalyst study and characterization)
•Materials science for catalysis
•Computational methods (quantum
chemistry, modelling and simulation of
complex reactions, computational fluid
dynamics)
•Basic catalytic technologies: process
and equipment design and
development
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Lecture 1 / Outline
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Mikhail Yu. SINEV, D. of Sci.

Senior Scientist, Project Leader
N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, R.A.S.
Outline Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Part 1. Catalysis as phenomenon, subject of basic research and basis of

industrial processes.
Historical survey – people, discoveries, ideas.
Chemical bases of catalysis; catalysis as kinetic phenomenon.

Part 2. Chemical kinetics as a doctrine of chemical process.

Reactivity.
Chemical reaction and chemical process; reaction system.
Phenomenological and formal kinetics.
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Part 1
Outline Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Part 1. Catalysis as phenomenon, subject of basic research and basis of

industrial processes.
Historical survey – people, discoveries, ideas.
Chemical bases of catalysis; catalysis as kinetic phenomenon.

Part 2. Chemical kinetics as a doctrine of chemical process.

Reactivity.
Chemical reaction and chemical process; reaction system.
Phenomenological and formal kinetics.
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Catalysis as Phenomenon
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Greek – κατάλυσις from κατάλυση – overthrow

Overview and summary of observations:
some reactions between seemingly inert chemicals
may occur in the presence of a ‘third’ substance
called catalyst
Jahresberichte für Chemie, March/1835

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848)

Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

History
History Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1
History Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Alchemy (XV Century):

spiritus vini + sulphuratus acidum →

aether + sulphuratus acidum

N. Cleman and Ch. Desormeaux:

SO2 + NO2 → SO3 + NO

2 NO + O2 → 2 NO2
Catalysis as Phenomenon Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

People, Discoveries, Ideas

People, Discoveries, Ideas Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Greek – κατάλυσις from κατάλυση – overthrow

Overview and summary of observations:
some reactions between seemingly inert chemicals
may occur in the presence of a ‘third’ substance
called catalyst
Jahresberichte für Chemie, March/1835

Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848)

People, Discoveries, Ideas Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Production of glucose via hydrolysis

of starch in the presence of diluted
sulfuric acid

which is not consumed in the course

of reaction!!!

Konstantin S. Kirhgof
(1764-1833)
People, Discoveries, Ideas Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

Pt:
Production of glucose via hydrolysis
of starch in the presence of diluted CO + O2

sulfuric acid C2H5OH+O2

(1811) ….
(1817 →)
Sir Humphry Davy
Konstantin S. Kirhgof (1778-1829)
(1764-1833)

Decomposition Pt:
of NH3, H2O2
C2H5OH + O2 Pt: H2 + O2
over metals of
→ CH3COOH (c.a. 1835)
groups I&VIII
(1820)
(1818 →)
Louis-Jaques Thenard Edmund Davy Michael Faraday
(1777-1857) (1785-1857) (1791-1867)
People, Discoveries, Ideas Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

J.J. Berzelius: the concept of ‘catalytic force’

M. Faraday: catalytic action is determined by increased concentration

of reactants near the catalyst surface (in other terms –
by physical adsorption)

Ch.-G. de la Rive: the concept of intermediate state (oxidation of H2 over

platinum via sequential oxidation and reduction)

thermodynamics and catalysis (1909):

catalyst does not shift equilibrium, but accelerates
only thermodynamically allowed reactions

Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald

(1853-1932)
People, Discoveries, Ideas Catalysis and Chemical Engineering / L1

the theory of intermediates (1912):

the reaction route changes in the presence of
catalysts

Paul Sabatier
(1854-1941)
⇓

Catalysis as Chemical Phenomenon