Does anyone know real life industrial examples that involve the use of chemical catalysts?

Question

I'm looking for other examples instead of the one shown in the text book which are ozone depletion with nitric oxide serving as the catalyst and catalytic converters.

Any help will do! The chemical reaction steps would be even better!

Answer 1

Most of the top synthetic chemicals in the world are fashioned by catalytic reactions.

Here are some of the biggies. The number is US production in 2006, in billions of kilograms:

sulfuric acid, 36.0, from SO3 made via catalyzed SO2 oxidation on V2O5

ethylene, 25.0; propylene, 15.7; both via hydrocarbon cracking on heterogeneous catalysts, usually zeolites

polyethylene and polypropylene, 25.6, polymerization of ethylene and propylene on either homo- or heterogeneous catalysts based on Zr, Ti, or Cr

ammonia, 10.4, N2 + H2 on heterogeneous iron (Haber Process)

1,2-dichloroethane, 9.7, C2H4 + Cl2, heterogeneous FeCl3 catalyst

nitric acid 6.6, first step is catalyzed reaction of NH3 + O2 on heterogeneous platinum catalyst (Ostwald Process)

benzene, 6.7, either naptha reformation, on heterogeneous Pt or Re chlorides on a silica support, or toluene disporoportionation on a heterogeneous zeolite catalyst

ethylbenzene, 5.3, benzene + ethylene, homogeneous acid catalyst or heterogeneous zeolite

styrene, 4.8, dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene on heterogeneous Fe2O3 catalyst

Answer 2

A good example is the use of metal-containing catalysts in the synthesis of Naproxen (Aleve).  Here the catalyst must be very special because it forms one "handed" isomer in overwhelming preference to the other.  This is called an enantioselective reaction and it is important because the wrong "handed" isomer can be toxic in some cases.  The catalyst is used in a hydrogenation step.