Chemical industry use catalysts to speed up the production process. Catalysts accelerate the chemical reaction involved in the process.

Chemical industries produce a variety of products like pharmaceuticals, food flavours and pesticides. Along with the products they generate a lot of waste. This waste results from fine chemical production. The volume of product may be just a fraction of the volume of waste generated.

Most of the waste generated is in the chemical reaction stage. At this stage, a catalyst is used to make the process feasible. The catalyst is then removed as a by-product. This by-product is usually a waste seen with the solvent. Once dissolved in the solvent it is difficult to separate the catalyst.

So most of the catalysts are single time use chemicals. This type of waste keeps adding-up in every batch production of the chemical industries.

Chemical engineers from ETH Zurich developed a new efficient catalyst. These catalysts help in forming bonds between carbon atoms in a cost-effective and eco-friendly way. This technology could soon make its way into the industry.

Nobel Prize Winning Catalyst

In 2010, a Japanese scientist Akira Suzuki and his two colleagues won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. They discovered and developed a palladium catalyst. By making tiny particles of this palladium-carbon-nitrogen material, the scientists were able to show that it catalyzes what is known as the Suzuki reaction very efficiently.

The ETH researchers have developed Palladium-based catalysts. Their research work was recently published in nature chemistry. These catalysts are stable and efficient. This solid-state catalyst does not dissolve in the solvent. The catalyst can be used for a long time period again and again. This would definitely reduce the amount of chemical waste.

“The new catalyst not only cuts the costs of synthesizing fine chemicals, it also reduces the consumption of palladium and decreases the amount of waste,” Pérez-Ramírez, Catalysis engineer, ETH Switzerland.

The catalyst might soon be ready for use in industry. The scientists claim that it should be easy to scale up catalyst production and use from the laboratory.