High throughput of non-steady-state catalytic activity characteristics using temporal analysis of products (TAP) AIChE 2008 Spring National Meeting

The enormous wealth of kinetic and structural information from model and practical catalytic system studies has greatly increased understanding of the link between catalyst structure and performance. A new approach to high throughput monitoring of non-steady-state catalytic activity characteristics based on the combination of catalyst preparation, which combines in a single apparatus an atomic beam depositionsystem with a temporal analysis of products reactor system, and a new methodology of non-steady-state kinetic characterization, is presented. The approach focused on establishing direct, reproducible correlations between changes in surface composition and changes in catalyst activity. When combined with time discretization and filtering, the Y-procedure leads to an efficient method for determining the reaction and reaction rate in the active zone. Using the Y-procedure, the concentration and reaction rate of a non-steady catalytic process can be determined without any preassumptions regarding the type of kinetic dependence. It is the basis for advanced software for non-steady-state kinetic data interpretation. Examples illustrating the Y-procedure are presented, e.g., CO₂ production over fresh catalyst deposit obtained by pulsing CO and ramping the reactor temperature. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 42nd Loss Prevention Symposium (New Orleans, LA 4/6-10/2008).