In recent years, increasing attention has been attracted for silicon carbide (SiC) in the field of catalysis as a potential catalyst support owing to its excellent thermal conductivity, relative chemical inertness, and high mechanical strength. SiC-supported catalysts are reported to exhibit superior catalytic performance in strong exothermal, severely corrosive and liquid-phase reactions. Nowadays, the researches towards SiC as a catalyst support focus on the following issues: the synthesis of high surface area SiC, the formation of carbide-derived carbon (CDC) on the low surface area SiC, and the surface functionalization of SiC. In this review, we address all of the above-mentioned issues. This article is arranged in three sections ranging from the experimental results over technical SiC-supported catalysts to surface chemistry studies on SiC single crystals. The first section introduces the structure and properties of SiC; the second section covers SiC as a novel support in heterogeneous catalysis; and the surface science studies on the 6H-SiC(0001) substrate are highlighted in the last section.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Silicon carbide: structure and properties
2.1 SiC polytypes
2.2 Physical and chemical properties
3 SiC as a novel support in heterogeneous catalysis
3.1 Synthesis of high surface area SiC and its application in heterogeneous catalysis
3.2 Formation of carbide-derived carbon (CDC) on low surface area SiC and its application in heterogeneous catalysis
4 Surface studies on the 6H-SiC(0001) substrate
4.1 Surface reconstruction in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV)
4.2 Metal-support interactions on carbon nanomesh surface
4.3 N functionalization on graphene overlayer
5 Conclusions and outlook