Catalysis-in-a-Box: Robotic Screening of Catalytic Materials in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond

• DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2020.06.025
• Publication Date: 2020-07-10T14:35:39Z
• Authors: Gaurav Kumar; Hannah Bossert; Dan McDonald; Anargyros Chatzid...; M. Alexander Ardagh; Yutong Pang; ChoongSze Lee; Michael Tsapatsis; Omar A. Abdelrahman; Paul J. Dauenhauer
• Keywords: Isothermal process; Instrumentation

This work describes the design and implementation of an automated device for catalytic materials testing by direct modifications to a gas chromatograph (GC). The setup can be operated as a plug-flow isothermal reactor and enables the control of relevant parameters such as reaction temperature and reactant partial pressures directly from the GC. High-quality kinetic data (including reaction rates, product distributions, and activation barriers) can be obtained at almost one-tenth of the fabrication cost of analogous commercial setups. With these key benefits including automation, low cost, and limited experimental equipment instrumentation, this implementation is intended as a high-throughput catalyst screening reactor that can be readily utilized by materials synthesis researchers to assess the catalytic properties of their synthesized structures in vapor-phase chemistries.