Laser-Induced Fluorescence Detection in High-Throughput Screening of Heterogeneous Catalysts

Abstract

In the discovery of new materials with useful properties, combinatorial chemistry has established itself as one of the most important methodologies because it is capable of speeding up the discovery process hundreds to thousands of times. The application of combinatorial chemistry in solid state heterogeneous catalysis is a relatively young research area compared with its application in the pharmaceutical industry. There are three aspects of equal importance in solid state combinatorial chemistry: (1) combinatorial synthesis, (2) high-throughput screening, and (3) effective compositional analysis of library components. Success has been achieved in the combinatorial synthesis of a solid state catalyst library by thin-film deposition and liquid-dosing techniques. However, more effort is needed in developing high-throughput screening techniques as well as fast and effective approaches for compositional analysis of solid catalysts in the libraries.