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Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality
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Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Cross-Field Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2025 | Viewed by 4026

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Ruiyang Qu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Leibniz-Institut für Katalyse e.V., Albert-Einstein-Straße 29a, 18059 Rostock, Germany
Interests: heterogeneous catalysis; energy engineering; environmental catalysis; catalytic materials; catalyst characterization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Motivated by today’s vision of sustainable development and the current urgent need for carbon-neutrality, researchers from both academia and industry are devoted to developing greener approaches in the fields of energy conversion, chemical production, environmental protection, etc. Catalysis, especially heterogeneous catalysis, which dominates in practical applications, offers an ideal solution as it can help to minimize the consumption of energy and the generation of waste. Hence, it is not surprising that catalysis is included as one of the twelve principles of green chemistry. Aiming at sustainable development, the ongoing substitution of feedstocks from fossil sources to renewables in recent years provides many opportunities for chemical transformations, yet urgently requires the development of more active, selective, and stable catalysts as well as new catalytic systems.

In this Special Issue, we aim to publish cutting-edge papers on the application of heterogeneous catalysis in sustainable development and carbon-neutral processes. Besides thermal catalysis, research on photocatalysis and electrocatalysis is also highly welcome. We encourage original articles, reviews, short communications, and other types of research papers within the scope of this topic. We believe that your contributions will be of great interest to a broad community of scientists and engineers working in related fields, and they will help in increasing the impact of Molecules.

Dr. Ruiyang Qu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • heterogeneous catalysis
  • photocatalysis
  • electrocatalysis
  • catalytic materials
  • renewable energy
  • sustainable development
  • carbon-neutrality

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 1458 KiB  
Article
Dependency of Catalytic Reactivity on the Characteristics of Expanded Graphites as Representatives of Carbonaceous Materials
by Do Gun Kim, Seong Won Im, Kyung Hwan Ryu, Seoung Ho Jo, Min Gyeong Choe and Seok Oh Ko
Molecules 2025, 30(11), 2275; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30112275 - 22 May 2025
Viewed by 73
Abstract
Carbonaceous materials (CMs) have gained great attention as heterogeneous catalysts in water treatment because of their high efficiency and potential contribution to achieving carbon neutrality. Expanded graphite (EG) is ideal for studying CMs because the reactivity in CMs largely depends on graphitic structures, [...] Read more.
Carbonaceous materials (CMs) have gained great attention as heterogeneous catalysts in water treatment because of their high efficiency and potential contribution to achieving carbon neutrality. Expanded graphite (EG) is ideal for studying CMs because the reactivity in CMs largely depends on graphitic structures, and most surface of EG is exposed, minimizing mass transfer resistance. However, EG is poor in adsorption and catalysis. In this study, EG was modified by simple thermal treatment to investigate the effects of characteristics of graphitic structures on reactivity. Tetracycline (TC) removal rate via activating peroxydisulfate (PDS) by the EG treated at 550 °C (EG550) was more than 10 times that of EG. The thermal modification did not significantly increase surfaces but led to increases in damaged, rough surfaces, graphitization degree, C content, defects, and C=O. Radical and non-radical pathways, such as SO4•−, O2•−, 1O2, and electron transfer, were involved in TC removal in EG550+PDS. TC degradation in EG550+PDS was initiated by hydroxylation, followed by demethylation, dehydroxylation, decarbonylation, and ring-opening. The ions ubiquitous in water systems did not significantly affect the performance of EG550+PDS, except for H2PO4− and HCO3−, suggesting the high potential of practical applications. This study demonstrated that graphitic structure itself and surface area are not detrimental in the catalytic reactivity of CMs, which is different from previous studies. Rather, the reactivity is governed by the characteristics, i.e., defects and functional groups of the graphitic structure. It is thought that this study provides valuable insights into the development of highly reactive CMs and the catalytic systems using them. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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15 pages, 5940 KiB  
Article
Catalytic Methanation over Natural Clay-Supported Nickel Catalysts
by Alejandra Cue Gonzalez, Elsa Weiss-Hortala, Quoc Nghi Pham and Doan Pham Minh
Molecules 2025, 30(10), 2110; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30102110 - 9 May 2025
Viewed by 266
Abstract
The catalytic methanation reaction allows for the attainment of methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. This reaction is particularly interesting for the direct upgrading of biogas, which mainly contains methane and carbon dioxide, into biomethane. This work focused on the synthesis and evaluation [...] Read more.
The catalytic methanation reaction allows for the attainment of methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. This reaction is particularly interesting for the direct upgrading of biogas, which mainly contains methane and carbon dioxide, into biomethane. This work focused on the synthesis and evaluation of natural clay-supported nickel catalysts in the catalytic methanation reaction. Natural clay could be directly used as a low-cost catalyst support for the deposition of small nickel nanoparticles (1–15 nm) by the standard incipient wetness impregnation method. These catalysts showed high activity and excellent selectivity into methane and excellent catalytic stability (80% carbon dioxide conversion, nearly 100% methane selectivity at 500 °C, 1 bar, and WHSV = 17,940 mL·gcat−1·h−1 for 48 h on stream) and outperformed their counterparts prepared with an industrial alumina support as reference. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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16 pages, 3475 KiB  
Article
Synergistic Adsorption and Fluorescence in Porous Aromatic Frameworks for Highly Sensitive Detection of Radioactive Uranium
by Suming Zhang, Siyu Wu, Cheng Zhang, Doudou Cao, Yingbo Song, Yue Zheng, Jiarui Cao, Lu Luo, Yajie Yang, Xiangjun Zheng and Ye Yuan
Molecules 2025, 30(9), 1920; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30091920 - 25 Apr 2025
Viewed by 195
Abstract
Uranium plays an important role in the modern nuclear industry. However, such a radioactive element can also cause severe damage to the environment once leaked or discharged into water or air, having a huge impact on the safety of the biosphere. In this [...] Read more.
Uranium plays an important role in the modern nuclear industry. However, such a radioactive element can also cause severe damage to the environment once leaked or discharged into water or air, having a huge impact on the safety of the biosphere. In this work, we pioneered the use of fluorescent monomers as imprinted units, which promoted fluorescence emission of the material. A novel porous aromatic framework was obtained with uranyl ion chelating sites, namely MIPAF-15. The unique N-O chelating pockets on the 4-bromo-1-H-indole-7-carboxylic acid gave rise to high coordination affinity toward uranyl ions, which enabled the fast adsorption rate of uranyl ions and a uranyl ion adsorption capacity of 44.88 mg·g−1 at 298 K with an initial pH value of 6.0 and the uranyl concentration of 10 ppm. At the same time, the fluorescence quenching effect of MIPAF-15 was observed upon its adsorption of uranyl ions, which allowed the selective detection of uranyl ions with a detection limit of 5.04 × 10−8 M, lower than the maximum concentration of uranyl ions in drinking water specified by the World Health Organization (6.30 × 10−8 M) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (1.11 × 10−7 M). This kind of multifunctional porous material produces a favorable pathway for the detection, removal and degeneration of highly pollutive ions, promoting the overall sustainable development of the natural environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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15 pages, 302 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Kinetic Models for the Catalytic Hydrogenation of Levulinic Acid to γ-Valerolactone over Nickel Catalyst Supported by Titania
by Carlos Alberto Sepulveda Lanziano, Cristiane Barbieri Rodella and Reginaldo Guirardello
Molecules 2025, 30(7), 1400; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30071400 - 21 Mar 2025
Viewed by 249
Abstract
The search for alternative sources of, and substitutes for, chemicals derived from fossil-based feedstocks encourages studies of heterogeneous catalysts to increase the feasibility of sustainable production of biomass derivatives, such as γ-valerolactone, among others. In this context, first, the performance of a titania-supported [...] Read more.
The search for alternative sources of, and substitutes for, chemicals derived from fossil-based feedstocks encourages studies of heterogeneous catalysts to increase the feasibility of sustainable production of biomass derivatives, such as γ-valerolactone, among others. In this context, first, the performance of a titania-supported nickel catalyst (a non-noble catalyst) was evaluated in the reaction of hydrogenation of levulinic acid to γ-valerolactone in water using molecular hydrogen. The methods used included the synthesis of titania via the solgel method and nickel deposition by deposition–precipitation via removal of the complexing agent. The nickel was activated in a flow of hydrogen; the temperature of reduction and the calcination step were investigated with experiments at reaction conditions to study the catalyst’s stability. Then, after a statistical evaluation of several proposed kinetic models, the kinetics of the reaction was found to be best represented by a model obtained considering that the reaction over the surface was the determinant step, followed by the non-dissociative adsorption of hydrogen and the competitive adsorption among hydrogen, levulinic acid, and γ-valerolactone. With that model, the activation energy of the levulinic acid to 4-hydroxypentanoic acid step was (47.0 ± 1.2) kJ mol−1, since the determinant step was the hydrogenation reaction of the levulinic acid to 4-hydroxypentanoic acid. It was also concluded that the catalyst prepared was stable, active, and selective to γ-valerolactone. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
18 pages, 4124 KiB  
Article
Polythiophene/Ti3C2TX MXene Composites for Effective Removal of Diverse Organic Dyes via Complementary Activity of Adsorption and Photodegradation
by Young-Hwan Bae, Seongin Hong and Jin-Seo Noh
Molecules 2025, 30(6), 1393; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30061393 - 20 Mar 2025
Viewed by 345
Abstract
This study presents an effective method to remove organic dyes from wastewater, using a composite of few-layered porous (FLP) Ti3C2Tx MXene and polythiophene (PTh) nanospheres. The FLP MXene, which was pre-synthesized by a series of intercalation, heat-induced TiO [...] Read more.
This study presents an effective method to remove organic dyes from wastewater, using a composite of few-layered porous (FLP) Ti3C2Tx MXene and polythiophene (PTh) nanospheres. The FLP MXene, which was pre-synthesized by a series of intercalation, heat-induced TiO2 formation, and its selective etching, was combined with PTh nanospheres via a simple solution method. The composite effectively removed various organic dyes, but its efficiency was altered depending on the type of dye. Particularly, the removal efficiency of methylene blue reached 91.3% and 97.8% after irradiation for 10 min and 1 h, respectively. The high dye removal efficiency was attributed to the large surface area (32.01 m2/g) of the composite, strong electrostatic interaction between the composite and dye molecules, and active photodegradation process. The strong electrostatic interaction and large surface area could facilitate the adsorption of dye molecules, while photocatalytic activity further enhance dye removal under light. These results are indicative that the PTh/FLP MXene composite may be a promising material for environmental remediation through synergistic processes of adsorption and photocatalysis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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13 pages, 3475 KiB  
Article
Bioethanol Steam Reforming for Hydrogen Production over Ni-Cr/SBA 15: Influence of Metal Loading and Ni/Cr Ratio
by Pedro J. Megía, Lourdes García-Moreno, Arturo J. Vizcaíno, José A. Calles and Alicia Carrero
Molecules 2025, 30(6), 1206; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules30061206 - 7 Mar 2025
Viewed by 551
Abstract
This work examines the influence of metal loading and the Ni/Cr ratio of Ni-Cr/SBA-15 catalysts on bioethanol steam reforming for the first time. The characterization of the synthesized samples reveals that higher Cr amounts result in lower Ni crystallite sizes due to the [...] Read more.
This work examines the influence of metal loading and the Ni/Cr ratio of Ni-Cr/SBA-15 catalysts on bioethanol steam reforming for the first time. The characterization of the synthesized samples reveals that higher Cr amounts result in lower Ni crystallite sizes due to the promoting effect of Cr, thereby enhancing the dispersion of the active phase. The catalytic performance has been evaluated in terms of ethanol conversion and H2 TOF (min−1). Ethanol conversion exhibits an increasing trend with higher Ni content, reaching up to 90% for samples containing 15 wt.%. By increasing the Cr content (lower Ni/Cr ratio) the results evidence a similar trend. A synergistic effect between Ni and Cr was appreciated in conversion values when the Ni content was below 11 wt.% and the Cr content exceeded 2 wt.%, which coincides with a smaller Ni crystallite size. Concerning the H2 TOF, the catalyst with the lowest Ni content (7 wt.%) exhibited a higher value with a notable enhancement upon increasing the Cr loading. However, a considerable decrease in H2 TOF was observed for samples with higher Ni loading. Therefore, the best catalytic performance, achieving nearly complete ethanol conversion and high hydrogen production, was reached when using catalysts with 7 wt.% Ni; the Cr loading should be increased to around 2 wt.%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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16 pages, 3519 KiB  
Article
Adsorptive–Photocatalytic Composites of α-Ferrous Oxalate Supported on Activated Carbon for the Removal of Phenol under Visible Irradiation
by Salomé Galeas, Víctor H. Guerrero, Patricia I. Pontón, Carla S. Valdivieso-Ramírez, Paul Vargas-Jentzsch, Paola Zárate and Vincent Goetz
Molecules 2024, 29(15), 3690; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules29153690 - 4 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1419
Abstract
Adsorptive–photocatalytic composites based on activated carbon (AC) and α-ferrous oxalate dihydrate (α-FOD) were synthesized by an original two-step method and subsequently used for the removal of phenol from aqueous solutions. To obtain the composites, ferrotitaniferous black mineral sands (0.6FeTiO3·0.4Fe2O [...] Read more.
Adsorptive–photocatalytic composites based on activated carbon (AC) and α-ferrous oxalate dihydrate (α-FOD) were synthesized by an original two-step method and subsequently used for the removal of phenol from aqueous solutions. To obtain the composites, ferrotitaniferous black mineral sands (0.6FeTiO3·0.4Fe2O3) were first dissolved in an oxalic acid solution at ambient pressure, and further treated under hydrothermal conditions to precipitate α-FOD on the AC surface. The ratio of oxalic acid to the mineral sand precursor was tuned to obtain composites with 8.3 and 42.7 wt.% of α-FOD on the AC surface. These materials were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and the nitrogen adsorption–desorption method. The phenol removal efficiency of the composites was determined during 24 h of adsorption under dark conditions, followed by 24 h of adsorption–photocatalysis under visible light irradiation. AC/α-FOD composites with 8.3 and 42.7 wt.% of α-FOD adsorbed 60% and 51% of phenol in 24 h and reached a 90% and 96% removal efficiency after 12 h of irradiation, respectively. Given its higher photocatalytic response, the 42.7 wt.% α-FOD composite was also tested during successive cycles of adsorption and adsorption–photocatalysis. This composite exhibited a reasonable level of cyclability (~99% removal after four alternated dark/irradiated cycles of 24 h and ~68% removal after three simultaneous adsorption–photocatalysis cycles of 24 h). The promising performance of the as-prepared composites opens several opportunities for their application in the effective removal of organic micropollutants from water. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heterogeneous Catalysis for Sustainability and Carbon-Neutrality)
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