Topic summary
Acid catalyst
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Acid catalysis.
Solid acid catalysts
In industrial scale chemistry, many processes are catalysed by "solid acids". Solid acids do not dissolve in the reaction medium. Well known examples include these oxides, which function as Lewis acids: silico-aluminates (zeolites, alumina, silico-alumino-phosphate), sulfated zirconia, and many transition metal oxides (titania, zirconia, niobia, and more). Such acids are used in cracking. Many solid Brønsted acids are also employed industrially, including sulfonated polystyrene, sulfonated carbon, solid phosphoric acid, niobic acid, and heteropolyoxometallates.