A study of catalyst operating regimes using alumina-supported catalytic plates for CO oxidation in a microreactor

Abstract

The performance of a microreactor loaded with Pd/Alumina catalytic plates was tested for CO oxidation as a model reaction. A microreactor with a feasible joining method was designed for catalytic processes. Further, this study aimed to investigate the correlation of metal active phase and support thickness towards catalytic activity. Experiments on CO oxidation showed that the catalyst activity of the active material can be improved by controlling both the catalyst oxidation state and support thickness. Pd in oxide form (PdO) showed better catalytic activity as compared with that of the metallic Pd. Furthermore, given the same amount of deposited Pd, the catalytic activity was enhanced by decreasing the catalyst support thickness, which is due to an increase in the surface concentration of the active metal as a result of its shallow dispersion. The results showed that increasing film thickness within a certain range (∼30 µm) could significantly improve the catalyst activity.