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to reduce the concentration of 0 by replac- ing pan of the atomically adsorbed oxygen

with an electron acceptor not involved in any of the reactions in the above scheme.

The overall analysis suggests optimum conditions for H202 production which are similar to those cited in most of the recent patents: high total pressure, with a high 02:H2 ratio, and an aqueous medium con- taining Br-or CT as an additional promoter. Gold is predicted to be the most effective metal of the four studied and a gold cata- lyst, giving high rates and high selectivity, has indeed been patented recently.

CLIVE MCKEE

Surface Reactivity and Catalysis Group

This is a specialist subject group of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry. It holds

regular yearly meetings and also publishes a regular newsletter, the latest of which has just reached my desk. This starts with a witty letter from the current chairman, Ken Waugh, in which he reflects on the va- garies of support for catalytic research and then discusses some of the recent and forthcoming meetings of the group. This is followed by an interesting contribution from James Thomson of the University of Dundee which summarises some of the uses of catalysis in fluorine chemistry and goes on to describe two developments from his own group: an iron oxide/cobalt oxide catalyst for the fluorination of chloro- hydrocarbons or chlorocarbons, and a novel catalyst for the hydrogenation of chlorofluorocarbons to hydrofluorocar- bons with high yields. Gary Attard of the University of Wales, College of Cardiffthen summarises some of the information

applied catalysis A: General

which can be obtained by using electro- chemical methods to study catalysts. The last article is a nostalgic walk down mem- ory lane by Geoff Bond, Emeritus Profes- sor (I think, retired anyway) of Brunel University. In an item entitled “The Dear, Dead Days Beyond Recall” or “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow”, he traces his entry to catalysis, lists some of the illust- rious people he has met, and describes some of the meetings he has been at. He also says that he plans to write his memoirs once he has finished a couple of books which he has in prospect. It is to be hoped that he will keep up his resolve as it should make interesting reading.

JULIAN ROSS

Methane

Perhaps I may, like Geoff Bond in the

item in the Surface Reactivity and Catalysis Newsletter referred to above, wax a little nostalgic on the subject of natural gas. Lying awake several nights ago wondering how on earth I was going to muster up material for this issue (the correspondents must all be on holiday) I realised that it is almost thirty years to the day from the time when I did my first experiments with meth- ane as reactant. I had just completed my first year of my research for a PhD under the supervision of (then) Dr. Wyn Roberts at Queen’s University, Belfast (several years before the current wave of “The Troubles” began) doing work on the inter- action of hydrogen sulphide (chemisorp- tion and incorporation of sulphur in the lattice) with evaporated metal films of tung- sten and iron.

Professor Charles Kemball was then our Head of Department and his group

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(which included David Whan) was still very actively studying the exchange of hydro- carbons over evaporated metal films. Sev- eral years previously, while Kemball was still in Cambridge, he had examined the adsorption of methane on several metals but the results were incomplete because of the lack of a suitable analytical system. In 1994, Professor Kemball had been given one of the first “small” residual gas ana- lyzers, an MS10 made by AEI. He sug- gested that it might be a good idea for me to build a (glass ultra-high) vacuum sys- tem incorporating this mass spectrometer and to then study the adsorption process in more detail, using deuterium exchange of the adsorbed species to learn more about the mode of adsorption. The system required that I acquired two stainless steel valves, some of the first items available from the newly established firm, Vacuum Generators. Many broken glass-metal seals later, we sorted out the problems of the construction of the system and com- pleted the research.

In 1999, I moved with the now Professor Roberts to Bradford as a Research Assist- ant, where we almost immediately em- barked on a project sponsored by an American company, TRW Inc., on the for- mation of polymeric films on metal sur- faces. Although the major effort in this work was concerned with the reactions of silane molecules with surfaces, we again di- gressed into the reactions of methane, this

applied catalysis A: General

time by studying the interaction of this molecule at hot electron-emitting tungsten or rhenium filaments, showing, using an early quadrupole mass spectrometer, that negative ions were probably formed.

Then, in about 1999, I became involved in what might be termed real catalysis with methane when I started to supervise the PhD research of Mike Steel (now with Johnson Matthey) on the steam reforming of methane. This work was partially sup- ported by Laporte Industries who made the so-called Catalytic Rich Gas (CRG) cata- lyst (a coprecipitated nickel-alumina ma- terial) for Briiish Gas, so it featured largely in Mike’s research. Several students later, I returned to the CRG materials, this time using methanation as test reaction. That led to a very successful collaboration with Lou van Reijen’s group in Delft and even later to a new job in Twente where I picked up methane coupling as a new line of re- search. And we’re still working with meth- ane, now on CO1 reforming and the com- bination of CO:! reforming with steam refor- ming, as well as methane combustion. Maybe, like Geoff Bond, in due course I’ll wriie my memoirs. But first, to more meth- ane work. Ummm? Perhaps NO, reduc- tion?

JULIAN ROSS

P.S. Have you any personal milestones of this sort? Let us hear about them.

Volume 117 No. 2 - 29 September 1994