Silicon carbide (SiC) is a kind of high-performance inorganic semiconductor materials, which exhibits stable chemical properties, good conductivity and acid-base corrosion resistance. It has been widely applied in the fields of ceramics, abrasive materials and microelectronics. However, the specific surface area of industrial SiC is very low (less than 1 m2/g), which is difficult to effectively disperse catalytic active components. Therefore, the application of SiC in industrial catalysis is still blank.

Prof. Guo Xiangyun has been engaged in the research on clean preparations and catalytic applications of high specific surface area SiC for years. The carbothermal reduction of xerogels invented by his group has been scaled in a pilot plant to produce SiC with a specific surface area of ~ 60 m2/g. The similar products in the world only have a specific surface area of ~ 30 m2/g.

The Guo’s group developed Ni/SiC catalysts for high-temperature or strong exothermic catalytic processes such as methane reforming and methanation of syngas, and noble metal catalysts such as Pd/SiC and Pt/SiC for the hydrogenation of fine chemicals. In particular, the hydrogen spillover on SiC surface and charge transfer between metal and SiC revealed by the group have showed great significance to the design of SiC based catalysts. Guo's group is considered to be one of the most influential research groups in the field of high specific surface area SiC, and its research work has raised important impact in the world.

Recently, Prof. Guo and coauthors from the Italian National Research Council, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, SICAT and the  French National Centre for Scientific Researchwere invited to write a review article on the catalytic application of high specific surface area SiC for Chemical Reviews, the top review magazine in the chemical field.  In July, 2021, the article “Porous Silicon Carbide (SiC): A Chance for Improving Catalysts or Just Another Active-Phase Carrier?” was published as cover in Chemical Reviews (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00269).

This article systematically introduces the applications of SiC as catalyst carrier in the field of heterogeneous catalysis: synthesis of fine chemicals, production of fuels, protection and remediation of environment, electrocatalytic and photocatalytic processes. It prospects possible research focuses and future perspectives of SiC-based catalysts.