A 'plug & play' microreactor for rapid screening of the activity of a catalyst on different supports

A ‘plug & play’ micro reactor is demonstrated for the rapid screening of the activity of a heterogeneous catalyst on different types of supports. The micro reactor can hold three interchangeable plates with each the same catalyst support. As a proof-of-principle, the hydrogenation of 3-methyl-1-pentyn-3-ol over a Pd catalyst has been performed over three different supports, viz., flat plates, washcoated plates and plates covered with carbon nano fibres. The flat plate support shows (partly) kinetically limited reaction rates, where carbon nano fibres do not run into these limitations, due to the larger surface area available for catalyst deposition