Material Science for catalysis: Quo vadis?

Abstract

Dedicated to Professor Josef Breu on the occasion of his 60th birthdayThe scientific work of the laureate of this special issue Josef Breu can be characterized as functional material science of nanostructures with emphasis on layered materials and functional polymers. A central theme is the creative utilization of self-organisation effected in reduced dimensions. His work targets selected application areas amongst which catalysis is prominent. The range of applications is, however, much wider as his scientific achievements address the concepts of functional material synthesis. The author focusses here on the relevance for catalysis. This is justified besides the competence of the author by the critical need in catalysis science for intelligent synthetic concepts leading to dynamical materials.The following bibliographic data may characterize the work of the laureate. Using the web of science, we find that from 292 analysed papers 94 deal with layered materials and 21 with catalysts as application. In Figure 1 we see the assignment of the 292 papers to the core topics within the web of science systematics.