A novel membrane reactor for catalyst activity control

英国世纪的化学工业需要继续创新，以提供更高效，更环保和日益强化的化学工艺。许多这样的过程本质上是催化的。事实上，在全球范围内，催化在新的绿色化学和可持续生产的创新中发挥着越来越重要的作用。为了保持其竞争优势，英国化学工业需要新的方法来开发催化剂，以增强创新并缩短周期。然而，一旦催化剂被装载到反应器中，就几乎无法通过外部手段来控制或优化其性能。想象一种操作催化反应器的方式，其中催化剂的性能可以通过外部手段以可控的方式显著地改变。催化剂活性可以被优化，并且催化剂选择性可以以这样的方式被操纵，即“关闭”不想要的副反应。这种技术将在英国化学品行业的全球存在产生一个步骤的变化。这项工作的动机是需要提供高催化剂表面积的催化系统进行催化控制，通过电化学促进。系统制造必须低成本且结构简单。特别地，该提议旨在建立在对电化学促进的理解的最新进展和在制造受控微结构混合导电膜的最新进展的基础上。我们将首次能够以电化学方式促进和控制高度分散的金属催化剂的催化活性（之前所有的应用都使用了低表面积连续金属电极）。欧洲主要参与者最近的EC FP 6提案[1]未能找到技术上可行的替代方案，以利用电化学促进的系统中的低催化剂表面积。然而，Metcalfe教授的小组[2，3]中开发的实验工作和理论见解在这里用于建议用于高度分散催化剂的电化学促进的适当材料以及用于催化剂控制的操作策略。所需的膜技术已经开始通过EPSRC赠款GR/S12197/01和GR/S12203/01与帝国理工学院的K Li博士一起开发。我们已经开始寻求对与反应器制造和操作策略相关的知识产权的适当保护，因此，我们要求将此建议视为机密。

The UK's 21st century chemical industry needs to continue to innovate to deliver more efficient, environmentally friendlier and increasingly intensified chemical processes. Many such processes are catalytic in nature. Indeed globally catalysis is playing an increasingly vital role in the innovation of new green chemistry and sustainable production. To maintain its competitive advantage, the UK chemical industry needs new methods for developing catalysts that enhance innovation and reduce cycle times. However, once a catalyst is loaded into a reactor there is little that can be done to control or optimise its performance by external means. Imagine a way of operating catalytic reactors in which the performance of the catalyst could be dramatically modified in a controllable way by external means. Catalyst activity could be optimised and catalyst selectivity could be manipulated in such a way as to 'switch off' unwanted side reactions. Such technology would produce a step change in the global presence of the UK chemical's sector.This work is motivated by the need to supply high catalyst surface areas to catalytic systems undergoing catalytic control through electrochemical promotion. System fabrication must be low cost and construction simple. In particular this proposal intends to build upon recent advances in the understanding of electrochemical promotion and recent advances in the fabrication of controlled-microstructure mixed conducing membranes. For the first time we will be able to electrochemically promote and control the catalytic activity of a highly-dispersed metal catalyst (all previous applications have used low surface area continuous metal electrodes).Recent EC FP6 proposals from the key players in Europe [1] have failed to identify a technically feasible alternative to low catalyst surface areas in systems designed to exploit electrochemical promotion. However, the experimental work and theoretical insights developed in Professor Metcalfe's group [2, 3] are here used to suggest appropriate materials for the electrochemical promotion of a highly dispersed catalyst as well as an operating strategy for catalyst control. The membrane technology required has begun to be developed through EPSRC grants GR/S12197/01 and GR/S12203/01 with Dr K Li of Imperial College.We have begun to seek appropriate protection for the intellectual property associated with the reactor fabrication and the operating strategy and for this reason we ask that this proposal be treated as confidential.