High Throughput Screening of Low Temperature CO Oxidation Catalysts Using IR Thermography

Abstract

The catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide is an important process used in several areas such as respiratory protection, industrial air purification, automotive emissions control, CO clean-up of flue gases and fuel cells. Research in this area has mainly focused on the improvement of catalytic activity at low temperatures. Numerous catalyst systems have been proposed, including those based on Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru, Au, Ag, and Cu, supported on refractory or reducible carriers or dispersed in perovskites. Well known commercial catalyst formulations for room temperature CO oxidation are based on CuMn2O4 (hopcalite) and CuCoAgMnOx mixed oxides. We have applied high-throughput and combinatorial methodologies to the discovery of more efficient catalysts for low temperature CO oxidation. The screening approach was based on a hierarchy of qualitative and semi-quantitative primary screens for the discovery of hits, and quantitative secondary screens for hit confirmation, lead optimization and scale-up. Parallel IR thermography was the primary screen, allowing one wafer-formatted library of 256 catalysts to be screened in approximately 1 hour. Multi-channel fixed bed reactors equipped with imaging reflection FTIR spectroscopy or GC were used for secondary screening. Novel RuCoCe compositions were discovered and optimized for CO oxidation and the effect of doping was investigated for supported and bulk mixed oxide catalysts. Another family of active hits that compare favorably with the Pt/Al2O3 benchmark is based on RuSn, where Sn can be used as a dopant (e.g. RuSn/SiO2) and/or as a high surface area carrier (e.g., SnO2 or Sn containing mixed metal oxides). Also, RuCu binary compositions were found to be active after a reduction pretreatment with hydrogen.

Combinatorial and High Throughput Screening of DMFC Electrocatalysts

“…Since Moates et al [58] used IR thermography to screen libraries of heterogeneous catalyst formulations, IR thermography has attracted much interest to be used as a tool for high throughput screening [59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]. The principle of IR thermographic imaging is based on the measurement of thermal energy emitted from an object.…”

“…The reaction heat liberated on the surface of the catalysts was detected by an IR thermography. Cypes and Brooks et al [59,60] primarily screened a 256-member catalyst library for CO oxidation in about one hour with an IR thermography. Then they used imaging reflection FTIR spectroscopy for the secondary screening, and finally they discovered and improved a series of novel RuCoCe catalyst compositions for CO oxidation.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of CoO-ZnO Catalyst System for Selective CO Oxidation

“…This process is for the protection of respiratory systems in living being, purification of air from the industries, control of the automotive emissions and CO from the flue gases and fuel cells [1,2]. In order to control the automotive emissions, the catalytic oxidation of CO along with combustion of volatiles and DeNOx catalytic processes are important.…”

“…Extensive work has been carried out inorder to improve the catalytic activity and lowering of reaction temperatures of these three processes [3][4][5]. Catalytic activity over some noble metals, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, and gold were tested for the oxidation of CO to CO 2 [1]. As the noble metals are quite expensive, researchers have drawn their attention towards transition and rare earth metal oxide catalysts.…”

High throughput discovery of CO oxidation/VOC combustion and water–gas shift catalysts for industrial multi-component streams

“…For WGS, primary screening was carried out in a Scanning Mass Spectrometer (SMS) reactor [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. For CO and VOC removal, a reactor employing parallel IR thermography detection was the primary screen [24][25][26][27][28][29] and secondary testing was performed in multi-channel fixed bed reactors [30,31] equipped with FTIR or GC analytics.…”