Johnson Matthey Technology Review - Volume 70, Issue 1, 2026

Platinum group metals (PGMs) are key for various applications in electronics, optics, medicine, sensing, catalysis, energy conversion, water or air treatment and many more. Unfortunately, platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium and osmium are limited resources. If efficient recycling is a key aspect of the life cycle of PGMs, another important aspect is the optimal actual use of the PGM resources. Optimal use can be achieved by designing nanomaterials down to the atomic scale to make the most of every single PGM atom. In this direction, a parameter often overlooked is the careful selection and development of the synthetic routes selected to obtain the desired PGM-based nanomaterials. Indeed, the way the nanomaterials are obtained can greatly influence their resulting properties and condition their use, activity, stability and potentially even their recyclability. For PGMs to truly contribute to more sustainable technologies and processes, how PGM nanomaterials are obtained could benefit from more sustainable syntheses. An account of emerging simpler and potentially more sustainable syntheses of PGM nanomaterials, their various benefits and remaining challenges is proposed.

Driven by the needs of a developing business unit, in 1994 ICI Katalco (which later became part of Johnson Matthey) started a collaboration with the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering on the scale up of a novel multiphase reactor technology: single technology and interest, single academic. This has morphed over the last 30 years into a broader collaboration across the School involving some 17 members of academic staff across an ever-broadening technical scope. While not unique in terms of longevity of a Johnson Matthey academic collaboration, others have been a relationship with a single academic. To date the collaboration with Birmingham has included over 30 graduate students, resulted in approximately 70 co-authored publications in refereed journals and leveraged approximately £7 million (2024 terms) of research funding for the University. This paper will review in general and specific terms, using case histories, how this relationship has been managed to the mutual benefit of both partners as a blueprint for long term, broad industrial-academic collaboration.

This is Part II of an investigation of the most recent developments in reactors for the ODS process. Here we present a discussion of the types of catalyst used in the ODS process along with the kinetics, mechanisms and reactor types. The advantages of OBR over conventional reactors are described.

The present work is devoted to revealing kinetic regularities of carbon monoxide oxidation using palladium on carbon (palladium black) and alumina with the addition of 0.1 mass% and 0.04 mass% of palladium as catalysts. The initial pressures of carbon monoxide and oxygen were: PCO = 0.13–1.33 kPa and PO2 = 2.67–16 kPa. The reaction was studied in the temperature range of 70–210°C. Small addition of palladium (0.04–0.1 mass%) to alumina led to a significant increase in catalytic activity.