Lectures Presented At The Nato Advanced Study Institute On Electronic Structure And Reactivity Of Metal Surfaces Namur 31 August 13 September 1975

Imagine that a young physicist would approach a granting agen cy and propose to contribute to heterogeneous catalysis by studying the heat conductivity of gases in contact with a hot filament. How would he be received now? How would he have been treated sixty years ago ? Yet, more than sixty years ago, Irving Langmuir, through his study of heat transfer from a tungsten filament, uncovered most of the fundamental ideas which are used to-day by the scientific com munity in pure and applied heterogeneous catalysis. Through his work with what were for the first time "clean" metal surfaces, Langmuir formulated during a period of a little over ten years un til the early thirties, the concepts of chemisorption, monolayer, adsorption sites, adsorption isotherm, sticking probability, cata lytic mechanisms by way of the interaction between chemisorbed spe cies, behavior of non-uniform surfaces and repulsion between adsor bed dipoles. It is fair to say that many of these ideas constituting the first revolution in surface chemistry have since been refined through thousands of investigations. Countless papers have been pu blished on the subject of the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, the Langmuir catalytic kinetics and the Langmuir site-exclusion adsorp tion kinetics. The refinements have been significant. ThE original concepts in their primitive or amended form are used everyday by catalytic chemists and chemical engineers allover the world in their treatment of experimental data, design of reactors or inven tion of new processes.

Vols. for 1980- issued in three parts: Series, Authors, and Titles.

This NATO Advanced Study Institute was concerned with modern ab initio methods for the determination of the electronic structure of molecules. Recent years have seen considerable progress in computer technology and computer science and these developments have had a very significant influence on computational molecular physics. Progress in computer technology has led to increasingly larger and faster systems as well as powerful minicomputers. Simultaneous research in computer science has explored new methods for the optimal use of these resources. To a large extent develop ments in computer technology, computer science and computational molecular physics have been mutually dependent. The availability of new computational resources, particularly minicomputers and, more recently, vector processors, has stimulat'ed a great deal of research in molecular physics. Well established techniques have been reformulated to make more efficient use of the new computer technology and algorithms which were previously computationally intractable have now been successfully implemented. This research has given a new and exciting insight into molecular structure and molecular processes by enabling smaller systems to be studied in greater detail and larger systems to be studied for the first time.

Intensive research on zeolites, during the past thirty years, has resulted in a deep understanding of their chemistry and in a true zeolite science, including synthesis, structure, chemical and physical properties, and catalysis. These studies are the basis for the development and growth of several industrial processes applying zeolites for selective sorption, separation, and catalysis. In 1983, a NATO Advanced Study Institute was organized in Alcabideche (portugal) to establish the State-of-the-Art in Zeolite Science and Technology and to contribute to a better understanding of the structural properties of zeolites, the configurational constraints they may exert, and their effects in adsorption, diffusion, and catalysis. Since then, zeolite science has witnessed an almost exponential growth in published papers and patents, dealing with both fundamentals issues and original applications. The proposal of new procedures for zeolite synthesis, the development of novel and sophisticated physical techniques for zeolite characterization, the discovery of new zeolitic and related microporous materials, progresses in quantum chemistry and molecular modeling of zeolites, and the application of zeolites as catalysts for organic reactions have prompted increasing interest among the scientific community. An important and harmonious interaction between various domains of Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering resulted therefrom.

Timely information on scientific and engineering developments occurring in laboratories around the world provides critical input to maintaining the economic and technological strength of the United States. Moreover, sharing this information quickly with other countries can greatly enhance the productivity of scientists and engineers. These are some of the reasons why the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been involved in funding science and technology assessments comparing the United States and foreign countries since the early 1980s. A substantial number of these studies have been conducted by the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) managed by Loyola College through a cooperative agreement with NSF. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), Committee on Technology's Interagency Working Group on NanoScience, Engineering and Technology (CT/IWGN) worked with WTEC to develop the scope of this Nanostucture Science and Technology report in an effort to develop a baseline of understanding for how to strategically make Federal nanoscale R&D investments in the coming years. The purpose of the NSTC/WTEC activity is to assess R&D efforts in other countries in specific areas of technology, to compare these efforts and their results to U. S. research in the same areas, and to identify opportunities for international collaboration in precompetitive research. Many U. S. organizations support substantial data gathering and analysis efforts focusing on nations such as Japan. But often the results of these studies are not widely available. At the same time, government and privately sponsored studies that are in the public domain tend to be "input" studies.