-Bruce Beard, AkzoNobel Surfactants America

The quality of our products depends upon our fundamental understanding of the production chemistry.  Within the R&D Analytical and Process Development groups we are constantly working to improve our process knowledge.  A recent addition to our process research capability is an instrument that analyzes the reaction directly within the reactor. This instrument provides data that identifies the compositional changes and speed of a reaction.  Formation of products or by-products is detected during the course of the reaction.

The real time data provided by this instrument allows immediate understanding of the effect of process changes on the product.  The picture above shows the analysis probe from the instrument inserted into a reaction flask.  The graph is an illustration of the spectral data obtained by the instrument that shows chemical conversions during the reaction.