Heterogeneous catalysis under flow for the 21st century fine chemical industry

Due to metal leaching and poor catalyst stability, the chemical industry's fine chemical and pharmaceutical sectors have been historically reluctant to use supported transition metal catalysts to manufacture fine chemicals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. With the advent of new generation supported metal catalysts and flow chemistry, we argue in this study, this situation is poised to quickly change. Alongside heterogenized metal nanoparticles, both single-site molecular and single-atom catalyst will become ubiquitous. This study offers a critical outlook taking into account both technical and economic aspects. (C) 2020, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

This study suggests that the fine chemical and pharmaceutical sectors may soon begin to widely adopt supported transition metal catalysts, thanks to the emergence of new generation supported metal catalysts and flow chemistry. In the future, both heterogenized metal nanoparticles as well as single-site molecular and single-atom catalysts are expected to become common.