Main Objectives in Environmental Protection by Catalysis:-

a) Pollution prevention by developing energy-saving processes free of pollution formation.

b) Decreasing pollution by achieving higher selectivity in fuel and chemical manufacture

c) Decreasing pollution by developing new and improved catalytic processes for removal of pollutants.

d) Developing competitive processes for production of hydrogen, chemicals and energy sources, providing reduced CO2 production.

e) Research: production of major products with greater energy and feedstock efficiency and with improved environmental issues.

Where catalysis plays a major role in the future?

1. Reformulated fuels
2. NOx, SOx; CFCs, VOCs, CO, methane, automotive exhaust gases O₃, N₂O, CO₂
3. Byproducts from chemical industry
4. Odor control
5. Toxic waste gas purification

Driving forces:

1. Environmental concerns
2. More selective catalysts to improve yields and to reduce byproducts formation
3. Replacement of liquid acids and aluminum chloride with solid acids, based on zeolite chemistry or other amorphous acidified silica alumina.

Membrane Separation

As the cost of wastewater disposal increases more emphasis is being placed upon the recovery and recycling of valuable chemicals contained within these streams. Membrane technology is a more recent development that can be used in conjuction with extraction solvents to extend the range of conditions under which such processes are available.1 The separation of distillery grain stillage was carried out on the micro filtration and ultra filtration ceramic three-channel membranes with pore diameter range from 1.4 μm to 15 kDa. In separation sequence the ions were recovered from permeates by electrodialysis.4, 5. The process was evaluated from the point of view of the mass balance and the dynamics (total separation time, the decline of the filtration effort made on the ceramic membranes, fouling effect, etc.). With this process we try to get some advantages over the conventional process in terms of eliminating both land and energy costs for the wastewater treatment process and improving the quality of the discharge water.

Reverse Osmosis

When a permeable membrane separates a dilute solution, the osmotic pressure drives the water molecules from the dilute solution, through the membrane to establish equilibrium. This natural response is reserved in the reverse osmosis process, where the waste water containing dissolved salts are filtered through a semi-permeable membrane such as cellulose acetate at a pressure higher than the osmotic pressure.