Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Active Carbon Research Group

Instrumentation

Instrumentation regularly used in characterising the materials include:

• Micromeritics automatic BET surface area analyser
• Quantachrome 60 K psi mercury porosimeter
• Shimadzu U.V./visible spectrophotometer
• 2 high pressure Sartorius balances

Specialised equipment that has been tailored to the needs of the group and developed within the college include:

• 2 heat of immersion calorimeters
• liquid flow calorimeter
• 3 McBain Bakr balances
• temperature programmed desorption system linked to a Dataquad mass spectrometer
• volumetric high pressure adsorption apparatus
• automated electrochemical oxidation cell
• binary dynamic flow system
• several temperature programmed pyrolysis furnaces and autoclaves

These systems are augmented by specialised procedures that allow the study of a wide variety of adsorbent-adsorbate interactions in both the gas and liquid phase. Expertise in computer simulations and data handling assists in the interpretation and study of the basic structures of the materials in question.

Information: macdonald-j@rmc.ca