Posted by Ben Proudlove on Tue, Dec 22, 2009 @ 05:53 AM
As normal Merrow Scientific will be actively supporting the British Zeolite Association conference in 2010 (BZA2010). Details of the event can be seen on the BZA2010 homepage
This year's event will take place from 24th to 26th March at Southampton University.
The conference promises to, as normal, focus on zeolites but will also look at other areas including MOFs (metal organic frameworks) and "the application of porous solids for energy-related purposes."
If this is an area relevant to your research then we look forward to seeing you there. We'll have a stand and instruments on display as many of our systems are related to these areas of research, for further details have a look around our site or perhaps specifically on our pages for porous materials analysis; MOF research; gravimetric sorption analysis and laboratory stirred reactors.
And finally Seasons Greetings from Merrow Scientific to you all. We look forward to working with you in the New Year.
Posted by Ben Proudlove on Tue, Dec 01, 2009 @ 12:17 PM
Further to their interview with Professor Kitagawa's group Science Watch have followed this up with an interesting Q&A session with Professor Kimoon Kim discussing the work at POSTECH in Korea looking at rigid and flexible MOFs for such applications as hydrogen or CO2 storage.
Metal Organic Frameworks (also known as Porous Coordination Polymers) can be designed and synthesised to meet many application demands and current research is pushing the boundaries in terms of being able to meet the hydrogen storage capacity requirements set by the US guidelines as well as being useful for the capture of CO2...
Posted by Ben Proudlove on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 @ 06:59 AM
Really interesting interview with Professor Omar Yaghi on the Yaghi Laboratory Website.
Professor Yaghi is one of the leaders in the field of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) and here he discusses their use for CO2 capture. The specific MOF he mentions 1g of the material has a surface area the size of 60-70 tennis courts! And this porous framework can be "designed" to selectively allow sorption of CO2 rather than other gases.
You may also be interested in having a look at our MOF research instrumentation page.
Posted by Ben Proudlove on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
Interesting paper recently published through the Journal of the American Chemical Society detailing work from the Kitagawa Group at Kyoto University and their research into porous coordination polymers.
Professor Kitagawa is well known to us as he's a good customer of Rubotherm and BEL both of which we represent exclusively in the UK and Ireland. I met him at the recent BZA (British Zeolite Conference) up in Ambleside where he presented on his work looking into Porous Coordination Polymers (PCPs) or Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs). They've recently been looking into frameworks that respond to a guest, in other words materials that can be unlocked/triggered by a guest molecule to facilitate a change in their structure changing the PCPs sorption profiles. So in simple terms materials that can be triggered to become more porous.
A brief question and answer section with Professor Kitagawa and his colleague on this subject can also be seen on ScienceWatch.com and further details seen on their group website
Posted by Ben Proudlove on Fri, Sep 11, 2009 @ 12:26 PM
Just like to take this opportunity to announce the launch of a new system we, Merrow Scientific, are now supplying in the UK from our Japanese partner BEL. The BELCryo allows users to carry out research into adsorption at extremely low temperatures. 
The BELCryo has a wide temperature range, allowing measurements to be carried out between 50K and 473K (so about -220degC to 200degC) and with a tight control on the temperature (accuracy of about +/-2mk at 77K)
The BELCryo system can be used in conjunction with a Belsorp Mini II, Max or HP to allow measurements of gas sorption to be carried out at any temperature between 50K and 473K, so such research applications as gas storage into MOF materials.
Coolant (such as liquid nitrogen) isn’t required so there are no issues regarding monitoring of coolant levels and related time restrictions.
For further details and pricing etc please give us a call or email us at info@merrowscientific.com full contact details can be seen here at our Merrow Scientific contact us page
Posted by Ben Proudlove on Wed, Sep 02, 2009 @ 02:07 PM
Two of our main product ranges that we supply in the UK market greatly benefit from the use of powerful earth magnetic technology.
Autoclave Engineers first developed and launched their magnedrive powered laboratory stirred reactors back in 1958 leading the world in this development. This was a way of having a sealed reactor free from risk of leakage or contamination that could be accurately stirred even when run at high pressures. This was achieved using a magnet coupling between driver magnets (rotated by an motor) and an encapsulated inner magnet assembly which leads to a shaft and impeller, so as the driver magnets are rotated the impeller and shaft are also rotated. Such are the strength of the magnets used that accurate controlled stirring can be achieved even at high torque requirements and under high pressures or temperatures.
The other excellent use of magnets comes from Rubotherm. Many years ago the research team in the Thermodynamics dept at the Ruhr University in Bochum had a project requiring gravimetric analysis of samples at raised pressures. Conventional gravimetric systems have a direct connection between the precision balance and the sample - which is great for low pressure applications, but once you get above 20bar or so or start to look into things like corrosive vapours then you get a bit stuck as your balance is in the same area as the sample you wish to subject to the high pressure etc, and doing so will damage the balance, so conventional systems weren’t any use.
So using a magnet/electromagnet coupling, a position sensor and a cracking control system they devised a magnetical coupling gravimetric system for measuring mass change/transfer of sample while subjected to a wide range of conditions.
This technology was eventually patented and a spin off company formed (Rubotherm). Systems have now been supplied all over the world for a variety of applications, including gas storage (e.g. hydrogen, CO2 or Methane into zeolites or MOFs), corrosion testing, biomass and coal gasification, polymer degradation and lots more. We’ve been up to pressures as high as 2000bar, temperatures as high as 1600degC and no problem at all dosing corrosive things over samples and measuring mass change.
The latest development allows TGA type measurements at raised pressures. Why would you want to do that? Well with some applications it allows you to imitate the real life conditions that would effect your sample and measure accurately what happens, for example HP TGA on oil, biomass or coal gasification, degradation of materials used in off shore drilling….. This hasn’t been possible until now as other TGA systems only operate at atmospheric pressures.
So thanks to the attraction of the magnet our customers in the UK are able to push their research into new and exciting areas……