Design and construction of a reactor-chromatographic system for on-line monitoring of gaseous reaction products

Despite the great interest in coalbed gas formation mechanisms, detailed de scriptions of instrumentation used for experimentation in such studies, esp ecially laboratory reactors for measuring reaction races under well-defined conditions, are scarcely found in the scientific literature. This communic ation describes the design, construction, and demonstration of a state-of-t he-art batch reactor system with on-line analysis and data processing for m easurement of gas formation rates. This system features complete on-line GC analysis of the gaseous compounds produced in the reactor as a function of reaction lime, it is computer controlled and automated using software writ ten in Visual Basic 5.0. The use of this reaction system is reported here f or (1) quantitative analysis of gas-phase products from catalytic hydrogeno lysis of hydrocarbons as well as CO2 hydrogenation, (2) real-time measureme nt of reaction parameters, including temperature and pressure, and (3) qual itative and quantitative analysis of gases desorbed from coal samples.