Gold catalysis in chemical processing

It is now apparent that a potential role exists for Au catalysts in the field of chemical processing, in contrast to pollution abatement. This development is prompted by the observation that supported gold catalysts can be a catalyst of choice for some reactions. The recent literature concerning two of these reactions is briefly reviewed in this article, namely: (a) the hydrochlorination of ethyne to produce vinyl chloride; (b) the hydrogenation of a, P unsaturated aldehydes to produce the unsaturated alcohol. For the first of these examples, a correlation between the catalyst activity and the standard electrode potential was used as the basis for predicting that gold would be the best catalyst for this reaction. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.