Nanotechnology: applications and potentials for heterogeneous catalysis

Nanotechnology offers the potential to design, synthesize, and control at nanometer length scale. While the catalysis community has many techniques at their disposal to synthesize catalytic materials at such a scale, the ability to fully design and control is still lacking. Examples are presented to illustrate what can nanotechnology do for heterogeneous catalysis to help achieve the goal of designing catalysts for perfect selectivity in a chemical reaction. Some current state-of-the-art approaches and potential limitations are discussed. Some examples of what can catalysis do for nanotechnology are also presented. However, this aspect is much less studied, although it offers rich opportunities for the catalysis community. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.