Asynt has developed and supplied two custom high-pressure reactors to assist researchers at the Centrale Lille Institute in France them in their development of advanced catalysts for biomass transformation.
The CatBioInnov team at the institute, led by Dr Robert Wojcieszak, is focused on advanced catalytic upgrading of biomass materials for biorefineries, alongside research into streamlining the use of fossil resources.
Dr Robert Wojcieszak said: "The team chose to source these units from Asynt because they offer real flexibility in their high-pressure reactor production to meet individual customer needs in terms of reactor size, construction materials, pressure ratings plus a huge range of options for agitation, heating and sampling. This flexibility was a perfect solution for us! Usually, we only have milligrams of catalysts so we chose a relatively small overall volume for our high-pressure reactors. This allows us to work with a large range of different catalyst metal/substrate ratios. The possibility to work at high pressures (up to 200 Barr) was also very important for us. As our catalytic reactions are often undertaken in corrosive media the choice of the Hastelloy for the reactor construction was logical”.
Dr Wojcieszak said: "The two 50 ml Hastelloy C276 high pressure reactors supplied by Asynt enable a considerable shortening of the trial-and-error phase necessary to design our new catalyst formulations. Using these reactors, we can perform several tests per day and study the kinetics of the reactions. The Asynt high pressure reactors are also very easy to use, further reducing the time needed to perform two sequential reactions. The support from Asynt has been just perfect. They helped us with the custom design issues and answered all our queries".
