Catalysis and clean environment: What do these two have in common

摘要

The theme of the 1990s, ''Continual Expansion through Sustainable Development,'' is the outcome of interdisciplinary studies undertaken in the preceding two decades to arrest ongoing global environmental deterioration. A critical component of various international efforts to formulate and implement environmentally-sound technologies is the planned involvement of developing countries and countries with economies in-transition which are poised for explosive growth well into the twenty-first century but do not have policies or financial resources to simultaneously manage their environment. Though CO(sub 2)-producing, technologies utilizing relatively abundant and inexpensive carbon-based feedstocks will still play a major role on the scene. Related to this, the aim of the ongoing effort at Brookhaven National Laboratory is to develop technologies for enhancing natural gas and coal usage through liquid phase catalysis. A successful application of this concept in the synthesis of oxygenates is described. The potential impact of this activity on methanol-energy, non-petroleum feedstocks development, H(sub 2)-energy, CO(sub 2)-recycle, and several other areas in relation to CO(sub 2)-mitigation, is also discussed.