Vanadium measurements rely on a reactor that adsorbs sublimation vapors of vanadium onto an alumina capture bed with high surface area.

(a) Configure the reactor with the alumina capture bed downstream of the catalyst in the reactor's hot zone to adsorb vanadium vapors at high temperature. You may use quartz beads upstream of the catalyst to help stabilize reactor gas temperatures. Select an alumina material and design the reactor to minimize sintering of the alumina. For a 1-inch diameter reactor, use 4 to 5 g of 1/8 inch extrudates or -14/+24 mesh (approximately 0.7 to 1.4 mm) gamma alumina (such as Alfa Aesar, aluminum oxide, gamma, catalyst support, high surface area, bimodal). Position the alumina downstream from either an equivalent amount of -14/+24 mesh catalyst sample or an approximately 1-inch diameter by 1 to 3-inch long catalyst-coated monolith sample cored from the production-intent vanadium catalyst substrate. Separate the alumina from the catalyst with a 0.2 to 0.4 g plug of quartz wool. Place a short 4 g plug of quartz wool downstream of the alumina to maintain the position of that bed. Use good engineering judgment to adjust as appropriate for reactors of different sizes.

(b) Include the quartz wool with the capture bed to measure vanadium content. We recommend analyzing the downstream quartz wool separately from the alumina to see if the alumina fails to capture some residual vanadium.

(c) Configure the reactor such that both the sample and capture beds are in the reactor's hot zone. Design the reactor to maintain similar temperatures in the capture bed and catalyst. Monitor the catalyst and alumina temperatures with Type K thermocouples inserted into a thermocouple well that is in contact with the catalyst sample bed.

(d) If there is a risk that the quartz wool and capture bed are not able to collect all the vanadium, configure the reactor with an additional capture bed and quartz wool plug just outside the hot zone and analyze the additional capture bed and quartz wool separately.

(e) An example of a catalyst-coated monolith and capture bed arrangement in the reactor tube are shown in the following figure:

(f) You may need to account for vanadium-loaded particles contaminating catalyst-coated monoliths as a result of physical abrasion. To do this, determine how much titanium is in the capture bed and compare to an alumina blank. Using these values and available information about the ratio of vanadium to titanium in the catalyst, subtract the mass of vanadium catalyst material associated with the catalyst particles from the total measured vanadium on the capture bed to determine the vanadium recovered due to sublimation.