Platinum Metals Review - Volume 32, Issue 2, 1988

There is an obvious need to detect the presence of flammable gases before their concentration levels approach explosive proportions. The platinum metals find application in the three main types of detector developed for this purpose, and each is considered here.

Organometallic polymer research offers many potential academic and industrial rewards because of the number of elemental variations possible. Unfortunately, there are no general synthetic methods as found for carbon based polymers. Transition metal catalysed dehydrocoupling reactions may prove to be generally applicable to the synthesis of silicon based organometallic polymers. We report here our efforts to synthesise organometallic polymers with a silicon-nitrogen backbone, polysilazanes, using the dehydrocoupling reaction. We also describe the synthesis of polysilazanes for use as precursors to silicon nitride.

Modern autocatalysts are complex, multi-component systems which, when combined with vehicle fuel calibration systems, are able to provide the activity, selectivity and durability required to meet the exacting emissions standards now demanded. In addition to the platinum group metals, one of the major components in current three-way catalysts is ceria, whose main role was originally thought to involve oxygen storage under transient conditions. In practice, the situation is more complex, with ceria contributing to a number of catalytic functions and also interacting with the active platinum group metals.

The name of Kuhlmann is familiar in histories of catalysis as one of the earliest pioneers of the modern processes for the manufacture of nitric and sulphuric acids. Yet the man and his work are little known. On the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his patents we consider the significance of some of his work.