PhD defense: Spectroscopy and Microreactor Technology for Single Catalyst Particle Diagnostics

In this PhD thesis, research on the use of microfluidics and spectroscopy for single catalyst particle diagnostics has been developed and described. Solid catalysts are important materials in the chemical industry to facilitate a chemical reaction in an energy effective way, without being consumed. Therefore, they can be reused cycle after cycle. Also, a catalyst can tune a chemical reaction in such a way that only desired products are formed. That is why catalysis is involved in the production of over 80% of all chemical products.

With the increasing knowledge that we have on the structure, composition and functioning of solid catalysts, we know that these complex, multi-component and hierarchical materials are generally very heterogeneous in nature. In this PhD thesis, several methods are described to screen individual catalyst particles with the use of microfluidic reactors and spectroscopy. We have tried to modify techniques for single cell analyses to facilitate the analysis and sorting of individual catalyst particles. This enables a high throughput of particles, increasing the statistical relevance of the analysis.