Chemical Engineering & Technology, Vol.38, No.10, 1758-1764, 2015
Continuous Fuel Cell Catalyst Preparation in a Directly Electrically Heated Tubular Reactor
A continuous process to produce carbon-supported platinum catalysts by polyol reduction was examined. The reactant dispersion was rapidly heated up to reaction temperature while flowing through a directly electrically heated tube followed by a downstream isothermic tubular reactor. Appropriate inner diameters corresponding to the desired short heating-up times were calculated. A certain lower limit for the inner diameter is caused by temporary pluggings of particle agglomerates circumventing steady-state operation. Tube diameters were evaluated with respect to heating-up times and plugging. It was proved that with a tubular reactor a continuous preparation of carbon nanotube-supported platinum catalysts with a low particle size and evenly distributed particles is possible.
Keywords:Continuous catalyst preparation;Directly heated reactor;Fuel cells;Polyol reduction reaction;Tubular reactor