Nowadays, the use of catalysis is implied in almost all industrial process. Their use allows improving productivity, synthesis yields and waste treatment as well as decreasing the energy costs. The increasingly stringent requirements in terms of reaction selectivity and environmental standards impose an ever more accurate knowledge and control of their operations. However, the characterization techniques struggle to develop and often require equipment with high complexity.In this paper, we demonstrate a novel elemental approach with an all-optical design allowing quantitative space-resolved analysis to be performed with ppm-scale limit of quantification and µm-scale resolution. This approach, based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), is distinguished by its simplicity of use, all-optical design, and speed of operation. This work was conducted on palladium-based porous alumina catalyst, used for the selective hydrogenation process in the field of petrochemistry. We report an exhaustive study on the quantification capability of this technique with the possibility to perform imaging measurement over a large dynamical range, typically from few ppm to %. These results offer new insight into the use of LIBS imaging in the industry and paves the way for innumerable applications.2
We propose an original methodology to integrate local measurement for nontrivial object shape. The method employs the distance transform of the object and least-square fitting of numerically computed weighting functions extracted from it. The method is exemplified in the field of chemical engineering by calculating the global metal concentration in catalyst grains from uneven metal distribution profiles. Applying the methodology on synthetic profiles with the help of a very simple deposition model allows us to evaluate the accuracy of the method. For high symmetry objects such as an infinite cylinder, relative errors on global concentration are lower than 1% for well-resolved profiles. For a less symmetrical object, a tetralobe, the best estimator gives a relative error below 5% at the cost of increased measurement time. Applicability on a real case is demonstrated on an aged hydrodemetallation catalyst. Sampling of catalyst grains at the inlet and outlet of the reactor allowed conclusions concerning different reactivity for the trapped metals.
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