Design and characterization of a temporal analysis of products reactor.

We describe an improved temporal analysis of products (TAP) reactor design whose main new features in comparison to the recent TAP-2 design of Gleaves et al. [Appl. Catal. A 160, 55 (1997)] are the use of a turbomolecular pump, piezoelectrically driven pulse valves, and a newly designed, differentially pumped gate valve. The gate valve allows fast and simple changes between high pressure operation, in which in situ catalyst treatment can be performed, and the analytic mode with a direct line-of-sight connection to the analysis chamber and the mass spectrometer. The heating system and pulse valves are located outside the vacuum chamber, resulting in a system that is easy to operate and modify. The high stability and reproducibility of the pulse intensity allows for direct, quantitative evaluation of single-pulse and multipulse experiments. The performance of the system is demonstrated using the CO oxidation over a Au/TiO(2) catalyst as test reaction.