Patent ID: 6869799

Claim:
A method for screening catalysts for a reaction of interest, the method comprising feeding one or more reactants through one or more distribution valves to six or more reaction vessels, the one or more reactants being fed simultaneously to at least two of the reaction vessels, each of the six or more vessels comprising an inlet in fluid communication with an entrance control volume, an outlet in fluid communication with an exit control volume, and a different candidate catalyst in the reaction vessel, the one or more distribution valves providing selective fluid communication between the entrance control volume and the six or more reaction vessels, contacting the six or more different candidate catalysts with the one or more reactants in the six or more reaction vessels under reaction conditions for the reaction of interest, at least two different candidate catalysts being contacted simultaneously with the one or more reactants in the at least two reaction vessels into which the one or more reactants are fed simultaneously, discharging reaction products and unreacted reactants, if any, from the six or more reaction vessels, through one or more selection valves to one or more detectors, the one or more selection valves providing selective fluid communication between the six or more reaction vessels and the one or more detectors, reaction products or unreacted reactants being discharged simultaneously from the at least two reaction vessels into which the one or more reactants are fed simultaneously, controlling the contact time to be about the same for each of the six or more candidate catalysts by synchronized operation of one or more distribution valves and the one or more selection valves, and detecting resulting reaction products or unreacted reactants to determine the efficacy of the six or more catalyst candidates, the resulting reaction products or unreacted reactants discharged simultaneously from the at least two vessels being detected simultaneously.