STTR Phase II: Scale-Up of An Innovative Spray Pyrolysis Process for Producing Pyrochlore Catalysts

这个商业创新研究第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是将Pyrochem Catalyst公司(PCC)的催化剂材料商业化。这些催化剂材料的独特之处在于，催化活性金属以原子方式分散在刚性晶体基质中。这赋予了无与伦比的热稳定性，即使在超过1000°C的温度下，传统催化剂通常需要更高的贵金属负载量(高达20倍)才能实现与本项目中开发的材料相同的活性，并且在高温下，这些活性金属会聚集成大团簇，降低它们的性能和催化剂的寿命。本项目开发的系列催化剂都是以优化利用和保护所有贵金属的方式设计的。这包括抵抗硫中毒和在恶劣条件下运行时积累碳。这使得这些材料成为高温过程的理想选择，例如用于制氢的蒸汽甲烷重整、用于生产合成气的自热重整、氧气传输膜(OTM)中的合成气体产生以及汽车催化转化器的废气氧化。第二阶段STTR计划的目标是在第一阶段目标取得成功的基础上，开发出一种低成本和连续的催化剂制造方法，以生产焦绿石粉，这是拟议的催化剂产品的基础。该方法可能同样有效地生产其他类型的混合金属氧化物，如钙钛矿和萤石。在第二阶段，PCC将按照第一阶段展示的概念验证的设计要素，建造和测试一个扩大的生产平台。新单元的设计将以比第一阶段单元的生产率提高100倍的速度生产专有焦绿石粉。第二阶段的技术工作还检查了一系列催化剂合成参数，如氧化剂气体浓度/组成、生产单元中的温度分布、前体停留时间、合成溶液化学以及优化热质传递。通过子奖励，该工艺生产的粉末将由西弗吉尼亚州摩根敦的国家能源技术实验室进行表征和活性测试。该项目的总体目标是开发一种高产量/高产量的制造工艺，生产用于商业销售的高性能催化剂。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Business Innovation Research Phase II project is to commercialize Pyrochem Catalyst Company's (PCC) catalyst materials. These catalyst materials are unique in that the catalytically active metal is atomically dispersed in a rigid crystalline matrix. This imparts unparalleled thermal stability, even at temperatures in excess of 1000°C. Conventional catalysts typically require much higher precious metal loadings (as much as 20 times) to achieve the same activity as the materials developed in this project and at high temperatures those active metals can agglomerate into large clusters reducing their performance and the lifetime of the catalyst. The series of catalysts developed in this project are designed in a way that all precious metal is optimally utilized and protected. This includes resistance from sulfur poisoning and the accumulation of carbon when operating under severe conditions. This makes these materials ideal for high temperature processes such as steam methane reforming for hydrogen generation, autothermal reforming for syngas production, syngas generation in oxygen transport membranes (OTM), and exhaust oxidation in automotive catalytic convertors. The objectives of this Phase II STTR program are to build on the success of the Phase I objectives that developed a low cost and continuous catalyst manufacturing method for producing the pyrochlore powders that are the basis for the proposed catalyst product. The method may be equally effective for producing other types of mixed metal oxides like perovskites and fluorites. In Phase II, PCC will construct and test a scaled-up production platform, following the design elements of the proof of concept demonstrated in Phase I. The new unit will be designed to manufacture proprietary pyrochlore powders at a rate with a hundred-fold increase over production rates of the Phase I unit. The Phase II technical efforts also examine a range of catalyst synthesis parameters like oxidant gas concentration/composition, temperature distribution in the production unit, precursor residence times, synthesis solution chemistry, and optimizing heat and mass transport. Through a subaward, powders produced from the process will be characterized and tested for activity by the National Energy Technology Labs, Morgantown, WV. The overall goal of this project is the development of a high throughput / high yield manufacturing process that produces high performance catalysts for commercial sale.