Mesoporous solids have widespread potential for green chemistry including catalysis, reagents, trapping and transport. We report a number of chemically modified porous materials including those based on silica, acid-treated clays, zirconia and expanded starches along with illustrative examples of their application. Economic, societal and legislative pressures are forcing the chemical and allied industries to reconsider the way they have practised chemistry in the last century. Chemical processes must be more efficient and less wasteful and chemical products must be less harmful to the environment as well as to life. One key area of clean technology is the replacement of hazardous acids, bases, metal and other hazardous traditional reagents especially for use in liquid phase organic reactions widely used in the speciality chemical and pharmaceutical industries. We have developed a scries of mesoporous solids with surfaces designed to provide the activity appropriate for many reactions and structures designed to enable fast throughput of many organic molecules. Successful applications include acid-catalysed rearrangements and oligomerisations, partial oxidations including those of steroids, immobilised palladium and solid base-catalysed C-C bond forming reactions.
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