Chemical Engineering January 2023 - 14

Newsfront
Doing Multiple Experiments
at the Same Time
New equipment and systems for high-throughput and parallel experiments are speeding the
development of catalysts and optimizing processes for both traditional and emerging industries
H
igh-throughput screening
has been used for many
years in the pharmaceutical
industry, especially
for drug discovery. More recently,
systems are being developed for
catalyst testing and process optimization
in many sectors of the chemical
process industries (CPI). The following
is a brief look at the some of
these new developments.
Catalyst testing
Integrated Lab Solutions GmbH (ILS;
Berlin,
Germany; www.integratedlabsolutions.com)
develops systems
enabling many catalysts and processes
to be tested simultaneously.
" By performing experiments in parallel,
the development time is radically
reduced and data quality is improved, "
says Anton Nagy, CEO and
founder of ILS. " Miniaturization and
automation make significant reductions
in operating costs possible by
reducing manpower and infrastructure
required for catalyst testing. "
ILS offers a number of different
high-throughput tools for testing as
many catalysts in as short a period of
time as possible, including 16-, 32and
48-parallel, fixed-bed reactors
and 10- to 96-parallel batch reactors.
Some examples of recent units
FIGURE 1. First conceived in the 1960s, this modern version
of the Temkin reactor enables catalyst testing on full-scale
particles
14
include the folllowing:
* For the group of professor Guy
Marin at the University of Ghent, a
16-parallel trickle-flow reactor for both
gas-phase reactions at temperatures
up to 700°C and low-temperature
trickle-flow reactions at pressures up to
100 bars
* For Sasol, a 32-parallel FischerTropsch
testing unit for catalyst
screening and aging
* For Evonik Industries AG, a multipurpose
16-parallel ultra-high pressure
(up to 300 bars) trickle-flow unit
* For Syngenta, a 20-parallel
asymmetric hydrogenation/carbonylation
reactor for screening of air and
moisture-sensitive homogeneous
and heterogeneous catalysts in a
corrosive environment
There have been a number of new
advancements that have been extremely
valuable, Nagy says. " At ILS,
we have developed a unique Temkin
modular-reactor approach
that makes it possible for
catalyst testing on full-scale
particles to be performed
at extremely small scales
(Figure 1). This is particularly
valuable for eggshelltype
catalysts used for fast,
strongly exothermic reactions
like vinyl acetate monomer
(VMA) synthesis or for
C2 and C3 selective hydrogenation, "
Nagy explains.
The ILS Temkin modules
are extremely compact and
flexible and hydrodynamically
optimized to provide
true plug flow without having
ILS
to add inert filler without wall-effects.
" A six-parallel reactor for example is
a fraction of the size of a five-parallel
reactor done in more traditional,
large-diameter tubes. This requires
far less feedstock and related safety
infrastructure saving clients time and
money, " he says.
The ILS low-pressure, high-speed
Berty reactor (Figure 2) is a unique
development that was developed in
close collaboration with the Friedrich
Alexander University of Erlangen,
Nagy continues. " Traditional
Berty reactors only provide sufficient
internal recycle to be truly concentration-
and temperature-gradient
free at pressures above about 10
barg. Current interest is particularly
in reactions like steam-methane reforming
(SMR) and dry reforming
that require low pressures, where
traditional Berty-type internal recycle
reactors fail, he says. ILS can
provide this unique tool capable of
performing kinetic studies on powders
or pellets at low to high pressures
(up to 800°C). " These tools
are currently being used to help petroleum
refiners develop improved
catalyst particle geometries, with reduced
pressure drop and improved
mass-transfer behavior for key reactions
like SMR, where CO2 reduction
is key to reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, " Nagy says.
More sustainable processes
" High-throughput
reaction
testing,
particularly for difficult applications,
such as biomass upgrading
or plastics pyrolysis, requires novel
approaches to reactor design,
Nagy continues. Recently, a HighThroughput
Biomass Upgrading unit
was developed in close collaboration
with the National Renewable Energy
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
JANUARY 2023
https://www.integratedlabsolutions.com https://www.integratedlabsolutions.com http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering January 2023
