The μ-reactor platform is invented at CINF and is originally published in 2009. The μ-reactor is designed in such a way, that all molecules that enter the reactor area, will be led into the gas detector, which is in most cases a mass spectromter mounted on a small traditional UHV chamber.
The design shows a number of advantages compared to a traditional catalytic reactors:
- The total volume of the reactor is just 236 nL, meaning that we are able to measure on very small amounts of catalyst. This could for example be samples produced in a cluster source.
- Only very small amounts of the reacting gasses needs to be mixed, meaning that explosive or otherwise dangerous mixtures can be measured without safety issues
- The thermal mass is very low. The temperature of the reactor can therefore be raised or dropped very quickly