It is of upmost importance for pharmaceutical companies to fully understand their drug production process. Sunovion Pharmaceuticals identified their heterogeneous palladium on carbon catalyst as a strategic area to enhance efficiency by establishing superior catalyst characterization. A device was designed, constructed, and validated for determining the surface area and dispersion of the catalyst by chemisorption, in addition to Scanned Electron Microscopy and Brunauer Emmett Teller techniques. Moreover, mass diffusion limitations were identified based on presence of microporous graphite carbon support and tested by zero length column analysis and temperature programmed desorption. Formal recommendations are proposed to direct the future use of precious metal catalysis by Sunovion.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Yang, Yuhan
• McIntyre, Jonathan Edward
• Colecraft, Kofi Nhyira

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-042518-200329

Advisor

• Kmiotek, Stephen J.
• Teixeira, Andrew R

Year

• 2018

Sponsor

• Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Date created

• 2018-04-25

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright