Over the last 15-20 yearsa wide range of new porous catalytic materials has been discovered in the wakeof major developments in mesostructured materials and hybrid porous solids suchas metal organic frameworks (MOFs). These two developments have both enormouspotential to produce catalyst supports and solids. It may be argued that mostexisting industrial catalysts may be revisited for improvement taking advantageof the novel materials. In both cases new techniques allow controlling not onlyspecific surface area and pore volume but even more importantly pore size distributionand therefore the diffusional properties of reactants and products. These areespecially critical when dealing with large molecule reactants as frequentlyencountered and converting natural products. Both subfields are indeed yieldingon a regular basis creative original materials which generate new catalysts,sometimes unexpectedly rejuvenating mature catalytic technologies. This specialcolumn is intended to illustrate these current efforts which for a large partare occurring in the Chinese catalysis community. The editors come from Canadaand China, and the authors involve well-known researchers from Canada, Sweden,Korea, Taiwan Province and Mainland China. This column contains two reviewarticles, one communication and seven original research articles.

The two reviews deal withcomplementary industrial processes: the synthesis of ethylbenzene and itsoxidative dehydrogenation to monostyrene. A complete historical review of thissignificant process is made with particular emphasis on recent industrialdevelopments in China (Weimin Yang et al.). The discussion indicates how therecently developed mesoporous zeolite MCM-22 yields systematically enhancedactivity compared to conventional MCM-22. Conversion to monostyrene using CO₂as a mild oxidizing agent in ethylbenzene dehydrogenation is then reviewed. Thecatalysts are ZrO₂-TiO₂ mixed oxides also prepared by asol-gel technique (Sang-Eon Park et al.).

Hard templating usingKIT-6 silica as the template was used to generate high specific surface areamesostructured MnO₂. This was shown to be an especially activeoxidation catalyst able to convert traces (400 ppm) of formaldehyde at temperaturelower than 130 °C (Junhua Li et al.). Similarly mesostructured perovskites(LaMnO₃, LaCoO₃, LaNiO₃) were prepared by aslightly different hard templating method and tested in the catalytic oxidationof traces of methanol (Serge Kaliaguine et al.). Mesostructured LaMnO₃was the object of a detailed kinetic study in this reaction.

Mesostructured MO_x-Al₂O₃catalysts (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Ba) prepared by a one-pot technique werecompared with mesostructured Al₂O₃ as supports fornanoparticles of Rh₂O₃. The resulting materials werefound active for CO oxidation and N₂O decomposition (Zhen Ma et al.).

Porous CeO₂nanotubes were prepared by a hydrothermal synthesis using the commercial triblockcopolymer P123 as a soft template. These were then used as a support for Pd particles.The resulting catalysts showed to be highly active in CO oxidation (JinlongGong et al.).

Other articles dealt withusing a variety of original supports for supported metal catalysts. These werefirst prepared by a one-pot synthesis of a hybrid mesostructured goldcontaining phenolic resin/SiO₂ combination, yielding Au/msC aftercalcination and silica removal. The mercaptopropyl moiety of MPTMS added toTEOS allowed grafting of Au in the hybrid precursor and reaching a good controlof gold particle size (Ying Wan and Osamu Terasaki et al.).

Ordered mesoporous carbonwas also used as a support for particles of Pt alloyed with Ru, Fe or Mo. Thissupport was prepared by a hard templating approach using SBA-15 silica as thetemplate. The resulting solids were used as electro- catalysts in theelectro-oxidation of methanol, showing interesting properties in terms ofcurrent density, onset and peak potential, and forward vs reverse anodic peakcurrent ratio in a cyclic voltammetry test. The electro-catalysts also showedresistance to coke formation and to deactivation by CO (Shang-Bin Liu et al.).

One problem in designingheterogeneous catalysts for C-C coupling reactions such as Suzuki, Heck orSonogashira reactions is the stability of the support under basic conditions. Aseries of Pd-metalated porous organic polymers containing phenanthroline ligandsexhited high activity and recyclability in all three coupling reactions (Feng-ShouXiao et al.).

Ni@Pd core/shellnanoparticles were prepared by solvo-thermal reduction of bivalent nickel andpalladium in oleylamine and triethylphosphine. These were then deposited in theMOF framework MIL-101 by wet impregnation in n-hexane. Exceptionalperformances were obtained in the catalytic hydrogenation of nitrobenzene as anexample of hydrogenation of substituted nitroarene reactions (Yingwei Li et al.).

All authors ought to becongratulated for the high quality of their contributions in this vast area ofmodern research, showing exciting possibilities for the future of industrialcatalysts development. This special column in Chinese Journal of Catalysiswould also benefit the further internationality and improvement of catalysisand community in China.