Date: 5 July 2021 | Category: News
Vapourtec is set to launch the Electrochemical Reactor Teaching Module, a complete flow electrochemistry system for undergraduate teaching labs. With this new product, chemistry undergraduates will be able to learn the fundamentals of electrochemistry in continuous flow.
The power of electrons
Electrochemistry studies the relationship between electrical and chemical changes. It plays a pivotal role in modern life. From batteries and fuel cells to organic synthesis, electrochemistry has the “potential” to make chemistry more sustainable.
One of the best-known electrochemical examples is the Chloroalkali reaction, an industrial process that produces chlorine and sodium hydroxide from salt water.
2Cl– – 2e– →Cl2
2H2O + 2e− → H2 + 2OH−
Enabling technologies such as continuous flow have, over the past decade of progress, established new horizons especially within the photo and electrochemistry fields.
For universities, it is very difficult to prepare lab teaching modules in which students learn the fundamentals of electrochemistry and flow. Cost and complexity of such commercial devices are the current barriers to implementing teaching modules in flow.
Teaching in flow
For Vapourtec, the importance of teaching flow chemistry in undergraduate labs is clear: students will learn and acquire skills that will be used in their careers resulting in the opening up of flow chemistry to wider audiences.
Vapourtec has worked hard to make the Electrochemical Reactor Teaching Module affordable by engineering a compact and rugged integrated system that is ready-to-go, including pump, galvanostat, and electrochemical reactor, at a selling price of £800 + VAT. This has been achieved by adapting the micro-Ion electrochemical reactor and electronics from Vapourtec’s innovative new mass-produced product, the easy-HC10.
Students will learn electrochemistry in flow exploring the Chloroalkali reaction and they will evaluate what factors are key in the electrochemical oxidation of chloride ions into chlorine.
Undergraduate lab session with Vapourtec
In one laboratory session, students would be introduced to both continuous flow and electrochemistry. Working with the Electrochemical Reactor Teaching Module and our laboratory protocol, students will plan and execute different experiments to evaluate the effect in the final concentration of free chlorine:
- Effects of variation in salt concentration
- Effects of variation in flow rate
- Effects of variation in cell current
- Effects of flow rate and cell current on the pH of the solution
- Determination of cell voltage
Whilst analysing these results and preparing reports, students will learn the implications of changing flowrates and cell currents to the rate of input of electrons (“charge passed per unit time”, mmol/s), as well as the effect of electrolyte concentration on cell performance.
Vapourtec founder and MD Duncan Guthrie commented: “Developing a teaching flow system has always been something we wanted to do. Introducing practical flow chemistry courses in universities will not only make the students’ profiles more desirable to companies but it will also spark their interest in continuous flow.
Although academics with expertise in flow can create systems for teaching, there is a need for an affordable out-of-the-box system, which will ease the adoption of continuous flow in undergraduate labs. We cover that requirement with the Electrochemical Reactor Teaching Module.”
To read more about Vapourtec's flow electrochemical reactor technology click here
To request more information about the Electrochemical Reactor Teaching Module click here