HETEROGENEOUS CATALYSIS OF ORGANIC-REACTIONS

A decade's worth of work is reviewed: building on the demonstrated pro wess of heterogeneous catalysis in industrial organic chemistry, the a uthor's laboratory devised efficient catalysts for a number of organic reactions, based on aluminosilicates such as clays and zeolites. This review also spells out, at a time when creative research is overshado wed by imitative research, some of the methological musts that also ha ppen to characterize physical organic chemistry: the devising of exper iments so that accurate numerical data can be obtained; the importance of remote, interdisciplinary connections; the need for estrangement f rom stereotypic preconceptions that may obscure the true explanations for the phenomena; and the over-riding need for concerning oneself onl y, or at least predominantly, with the important facts that nature tel ls, if one cares to listen. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.