Applications of Combinatorial Methods in Catalysis

With rising economic demands for higher efficiency and productivity in research and development, combinatorial catalysis is increasingly being implemented to bring more catalysts per unit time to the marketplace. High-throughput automated synthesis and advanced screening technologies are now being applied to the discovery of more efficient homogeneous as well as heterogeneous catalysts and materials. The combinatorial process allows the exploration of large and diverse compositional and parameter spaces by establishing an integrated workflow of rapid parallel or combinatorial synthesis of large numbers of catalytic materials, subsequent high-throughput assaying of these compounds and large-scale data analysis. The number of experiments that can be screened has risen by orders of magnitude resulting in a much higher probability of discovering new catalysts or materials. The goal of this review is to provide an overview of selected advances that have been made in this rapidly growing field in both academia and industry over the past several years.