Bibliometric analysis of the development tendency of VOCs catalytic oxidation

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have a wide variety and large emissions. VOCs are precursors of ozone and photochemical smog. Some VOCs, such as benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX), are carcinogenic, teratogenetic, and mutagenic, which can greatly harm the skin, viscera, and nervous system. Researchers estimated in 2013 that 5.5 million people died from air pollution worldwide, thus becoming a serious threat to our daily lives. In the context of massive VOC emissions, the dramatic decline of the regional air quality, and the frequent occurrence of environmental problems, more attention has been paid to the control of VOCs. Governments have formulated a series of regulations and policies to limit the emissions of man-made VOCs. Under the guidance of strict policies, scholars have conducted extensive research on the governance technology of VOCs. Taking the catalytic oxidation of VOCs as the topic in this study, 4654 papers were processed by the Web of Science database, and the development tendency and research status of the topic were analyzed by way of bibliometrics. Results show that the VOC catalytic oxidation has abundant research depth in the past 25 years. The research prospect is found to be admirable and the number of published papers shows an exponential growth trend. China is the largest contributor of publications in the world, accounting for 34% of the total research. The biggest producing institution and journal are the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (6.66%) and the Applied Catalysis B-Environmental (11.68%), respectively. Chemistry and Engineering are the most popular subjects. In addition, the hot word analysis in recent years shows that the most popular element in the catalyst is Mn, while toluene is the most common substrate of VOCs in the experiment. At the same time, this paper summarizes common catalyst substances and VOC substrates, which consequently reflects the current main research direction and provides guidance for future research.