Kinetics and Catalysis

A major research effort is directed towards a wide variety of problems involving chemical reactions. Seven faculty direct approximately twenty graduate students in problems spanning heterogeneous metal and metal oxide catalysis, chemical vapor deposition, reaction and separation by reactive distillation or with catalytic inorganic membranes, and multiphase catalysis. The main areas of activity are:

Olefin polymerization (Conner and Laurence)
Infrared spectroscopy of catalytic reactions (Conner)
Catalytic reaction kinetics and dynamics (Conner)
Modeling of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) (Westmoreland)
Chemical mechanisms in microelectronics fabrication, homogeneous, and cracking of hydrocarbons (Westmoreland)

There is a strong element of chemistry in these projects. For example, compositions of steam-cracking products and of free radicals and stable species within flames are measured; then the reaction chemistry is interpreted with reactor models involving 200 to 1,000 elementary reactions. Molecular-beam mass spectrometry, used in flame research, is being applied for the first time to measure gas compositions and to unravel the chemistry in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The observation of phenomena such as steady-state multiplicity and oscillations and measurement of more conventional kinetic trends provide the basis for a procedure of kinetic model development and discrimination for a wide class of noble-metal-catalyzed oxidation reactions. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy is used to monitor surface species and catalyst structure during reaction on metal oxide catalysts. Molecular rearrangement, fragmentation, and scavenging in metal-catalyzed hydrocarbon reactions are studied. Reaction and transport during olefin polymerization in a fragmenting catalyst pellet are modeled. The problem of multiphase transport-reaction interactions and their impact on the performance of multiphase reactors has been pursued.

In addition, several new types of reactors are being developed for use in emerging technologies. Simultaneous reaction and distillation of components in highly nonideal liquid mixtures is studied. Design and synthesis schemes are being developed to achieve reaction and separation in a single unit. Coupled reaction and separation is also a motivation for the development of catalytic ceramic membranes. A new type of catalytic membrane reactor has been developed which segregates the gas and liquid streams, thus reducing mass transport limitations for the wide class of volatile reactant-limited multiphase reactions.

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