Matter
ArticleCatalysis-in-a-Box: Robotic Screening of Catalytic Materials in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond
Progress and Potential
Automation to reduce research labor is an important area in reaction engineering, and reactors capable of operating without manual intervention are sought for rapid catalyst testing. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic provides further impetus to a transition away from labor-intensive material testing techniques to new automated approaches without compromising on data quality, and at costs viable for academic laboratories. Here, we convert common analytical equipment employed in catalysis laboratories, namely a gas chromatograph (GC), into a low-cost packed bed flow reactor that can be operated isothermally. The quality of catalytic data is validated by comparisons with prior reports on more traditional reactors. Ultimately, this user-friendly implementation only requires limited additional instrumentation and cost to GC operation and puts a standardized high-throughput reactor into the hands of materials synthesis researchers for screening their synthesized catalysts.