Small Scale Laboratory Reactors

In the modern industrial economy, catalysis forms the cornerstone of the chemical and petroleum industries. Process throughputs are large, and therefore even minor improvements in catalyst performance can have a substantial economic return, while the discovery of a new catalyst may render existing processes uncompetitive almost overnight. As a consequence, the search for new or improved catalysts produces large numbers of candidate systems which must be evaluated. Central to the evaluation is the assessment of the catalyst’s reaction performance, carried out using one or more of the many forms of laboratory reactor available. The nature of these tests, the reactor design and the interpretation of the results vary widely in their degree of sophistication, and will be determined by the characteristics of the reaction system in question, the time and financial resources available, and the purpose for which the information is required.