High-Throughput Synthesis and Screening of Combinatorial Heterogeneous Catalyst Libraries

In less than one minute the catalytic activity and selectivity of a single catalyst was measured in combinatorial libraries of ternary Rh-Pd-Pt-Cu alloys. Only slightly more than two hours were needed to complete a library with 136 elements. The elements of the libraries (ca. 2-4 μg of material) are contained in a two-dimensional array synthesized by a thin-film technique. The analysis was performed by a scanning mass spectrometer (see picture).