Increasing Rates of Catalytic Chemical Reaction by Operating Under Conditions of Adsorption Compression

Unmet Need
Heterogeneous catalysts are highly utilized on the industrial scale to make products such as refined gasoline for automobiles, hydrocarbons used for polymerization, fertilizers, polymers, decomposing a toxic outgas, and many other chemical transformations. Catalysts are capable of speeding up reactions, allowing them to operate at lower temperatures, and increasing yields, and doing one or all of these things without being consumed.  While catalysts can be expensive, small amounts of the catalytic material can be used, drastically reducing the overall cost of manufacturing goods and allowing for higher profits. Additionally, catalysts may also enable chemical transformations not otherwise possible.
 
Operating conditions for catalysts are often optimized by systematically testing different variables such as temperature, pressure, or concentration of a reactant and analyzing the results. This method is often time consuming, and can be costly, while not promising the optimal conditions. The lower the temperature or pressure an industrial scale reaction can be run, the lower the energy cost.
 
Technology Overview
A researcher at Johns Hopkins has developed a method to screen different catalysts by finding the conditions where adsorption compression occurs. Under the adsorption compression regime, the adsorbed molecules will experience a high molecular force, which serves to strain molecular bonds, potentially lowering the activation energy of a catalytic reaction. By operating under these conditions, it is possible to run reactions at much lower temperatures than expected, while maintaining or increasing the turnover rate of a catalytic reaction. In addition, utilizing the adsorption compression regime for catalysis, it may be possible to discover previously unattainable chemical transformations.
 
Stage of Development
Researchers have shown that using this method to identify conditions of adsorption compression and operating catalytic reactions under these conditions can increase the rate of a reaction by up to a factor of 20.
 
 
Publications
N/A
 
 

Category(s):