Parametric Investigation of Rate Enhancement during fast Temperature Cycling of CO Oxidation in Microreactors

A new microreactor that allows investigation of the effects of temperature oscillations at frequencies 10 times higher than in previous systems is presented. As an example, we investigate CO oxidation over a supported Pt catalyst subjected to a fast forced oscillation of the reactor temperature and confirm earlier findings of reaction rate enhancements. The enhancement is shown to increase at high frequencies. Varying the conversion and temperature oscillation amplitude is shown to have a large effect on the rate enhancement, and a large interaction between the two parameters is detected. For the best parameter setting, reaction rates 70% higher than during slow steady-state-like oscillations are observed.