Advances in Microwave-Assisted Heterogeneous Catalysis

Historically the field of heterogeneous catalysis has focused on the design and optimisation of the catalytic materials. However, as these optimisations start to reach diminishing returns, attention has turned to non-conventional means for improving reaction conditions such as the use of ultrasound, plasma, electromagnetic heating and microwave heating. Microwave-assisted catalysis has been demonstrated to be useful in a wide range of applications including ammonia synthesis, desulfurization and production of chemicals from biomass.

Advances in Microwave-assisted Heterogeneous Catalysis begins with the basics of microwave heating and the role of microwaves in heterogeneous catalysis. It goes on to cover the mechanisms of microwave specific reaction rate enhancement, microwave-assisted synthesis of porous, nonporous and supported metal catalysts, microwave augmented reactor technology and microwave-induced catalysis. The application of microwave-assisted heterogeneous catalysis in various fields of energy conversion, environmental remediation, and bulk and specialty chemicals synthesis are also discussed, making this a great reference for anyone involved in catalysis research.

Jianli (John) Hu received his PhD degree in 1991 with excellent thesis award in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University, China, and was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA in the group of Professor Irving Wender. He received an MBA degree from Washington State University, Washington in the year 2002. During 1995-1999, he worked in the refining industry at Head Water, Inc. and at British Petroleum (BP), supervising zeolite catalyst development research with the objective of technology licensing to others. From 1999 to 2007 he worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as Research Manager guiding multidisciplinary teams to execute several Federal Government funded research programs. During 2007-2010 he was at Black & Veatch Corporation as R&D Manager directing interdisciplinary teams of R&D engineers and process experts to commercialize various chemical technologies. Subsequently, he was at Koch Industries, Inc. until 2016 as Director of Technology Innovation. Since 2016 he has been at West Virginia University as Statler Chair Professor and Director of Shale Gas Center.

Benjaram M. Reddy received PhD degree in Catalysis from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India in 1986 and had post-doctoral stints at Institute for Physical Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany (1988-1989), University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY (1993-1994), and Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (1994-1995). He began his scientific career as junior scientist in 1984 at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, where he continued on various capacities namely, Chief Scientist, Head of Department, Distinguished Fellow, and Emeritus Scientist until December 2020. During his long research career, he also worked in different countries on various invitation fellowships namely, JSPS (Japan), DAAD (Germany), CNRS (France), SER (Switzerland), NSF (USA), and Brain-pool (South Korea).
Presently, he is associated with Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani, Hyderabad Campus as Senior Professor Emeritus.