In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance which increases the speed of a chemical reaction without the substance itself being used in the reaction. It does this by reducing the activation energy. By doing this, catalysts change the kinetics of chemical reactions without changing their thermodynamic properties. They speed up the forward and reverse reaction at the same rate so that the equilibrium of a reaction is not affected in any way.
The chemistry department at a German university designed a system for testing catalysts for chemical substance conversions.
Using flow meters, pressure controllers and pumps EL-FLOW Mass Flow Controllers (MFCs) are used to mix a variety of gases (NH3, H2, CO2, N2, Ar, CO, etc.). In this system, they are fed into a reactor along with toluene, methanol and water. In that reactor, an EL-PRESS pressure controller (EPC) is then used to bring the catalyst to a constant pressure while the reactor is still being heated.
What is special about this application is that three
mini CORI-FLOW Coriolis mass flow meters (LFMs) which control three (WADOSE) HPLC pumps are used for dosing and mixing the liquids. The mass flow meters with pumps and the gas flow controllers are controlled by means of a fieldbus (FLOWBUS).
The three mini CORI-FLOW devices are designed for a flow rate of 20 g/h and the setting ratio of the pump control system is 1:50 so that the smallest value that can be controlled is 0.4 g/h. The pumps are mounted on the side and controlled by means of the RS232 of the Coriolis liquid flow meters.
Mini CORI-FLOW™ mass flow meters offer integrated PID control for close-coupled control valves or pumps, thus constituting compact Coriolis mass flow control loops. The instruments offer both analog and RS-232 communication, optional fieldbus interfaces and additional functions such as alarms, totalizer (to measure fluid consumption) and batch dosing. The mass flow meters feature fluid temperature and density as secondary digital outputs. As an option, the Coriolis flow meter can be equipped with a heater to prevent condensation or solidification inside the instrument.
