Solid catalysts come in many different shapes and sizes, but they have in common that they are often micrometer sized, structured particles, with a well-defined porosity. With the increasing available knowledge on the structure, composition and functioning of solid catalysts, we know that these complex, multi-component and hierarchical catalyst particles are heterogeneous in nature. This inter- as well as intraparticle heterogeneity makes their in-depth analysis difficult by limiting the usability of bulk characterization methods, as well ascomplicating single catalyst particle analysis due to the lack of statistical relevance.&lt;font size="1"&gt; &lt;/font&gt;Therefore, appropriate methods should be developed that can perform single catalyst particle screening in a high-throughput fashion, to provide in-depth information with statistical relevance. In other research fields that deal with large heterogeneous samples, such as biomedical or (bio)chemical screening of cells or proteins, screening and sorting has already been successfully exploited. For the analysis and sorting of single cells, the use of microfluidic techniques have been investigated extensively, resulting in statistically relevant single cell analyses. This is the topic of this lecture, in which we show how microreactor technology and in-situ spectroscopy can be used in tandem to evaluate the activity of single catalyst particles in single droplet, and subsequently separate them on the basis of in-situ spectroscopy. By doing so, we can selectively hand-pick highly active as well as highly deactivating catalyst particles and explain why they are so active or inactive. This helps us as scientists to develop proper structure-performance relationships in the field of catalysis.

High throughput activity screening and sorting of single catalyst particles with microreactor technology and in-situ spectroscopy

ACS Spring 2022

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