Abstract
Nanotechnology plays a central role in both academic research and industrial applications. Nanoenabled products are not only found in consumer markets, but also importantly in business to business markets (B2B). One of the oldest application areas of nanotechnology is nanocatalysis—an excellent example for such a B2B market. Several existing reviews illustrate the scientific developments in the field of nanocatalysis. The goal of the present review is to provide an up-to-date picture of academic research and to extend this picture by an industrial and economic perspective. We therefore conducted an extensive search on several scientific databases and we further analyzed more than 1,500 nanocatalysis-related patents and numerous market studies. We found that scientists today are able to prepare nanocatalysts with superior characteristics regarding activity, selectivity, durability, and recoverability, which will contribute to solve current environmental, social, and industrial problems. In industry, the potential of nanocatalysis is recognized, clearly reflected by the increasing number of nanocatalysis-related patents and products on the market. The current nanocatalysis research in academic and industrial laboratories will therefore enable a wealth of future applications in the industry.
Highlights
Nanoscience is considered as one of the key technology areas of the 21st century
The present paper provides a detailed insight into the field of nanocatalysis both from an academic point of view and an economic point of view
By reviewing current scientific literature on nanocatalysis in the first part of the paper we demonstrated its importance in academic research
Summary
Regarding consumer markets, the number of nanoenabled products is not yet as considerable as might be inferred from the large amount of publications in the field [9] This inference might, not be applicable to the business to business (B2B) market for nanotechnology. The starting materials and the catalytic substance are brought together in the same phase, which ensures high catalytic activity and selectivity [27]. The former can be expressed with the turn over frequency (TOF), defined as the number of substrate molecules that are catalytically converted into product during a certain time period. A main drawback of traditional heterogeneous catalyst systems compared to their homogeneous counterparts is the reduced surface area that is accessible to reactant
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