During her PhD, Laura Barberis investigated copper catalysts for the conversion of carbon dioxide, aiming to turn an exhaust gas into a valuable carbon resource for chemicals, fuels and materials. Copper catalysts were central to her work because copper is widely available and more affordable than noble metals, making the system more attractive for sustainable processes. By using carbon materials as catalyst supports, she could tune both the structure and performance of the system, keeping it affordable and highly tweakable.

She worked across the entire process chain:

• Catalyst synthesis
• Materials characterization
• Design of Experiments (DoE)
• Chemical process development
• Analytics and performance evaluation

Flowrence’s Impact on Her Research

The high‑throughput capabilities allowed her to generate large volumes of high‑quality catalytic data, speed up catalyst screening and process optimisation, free up time for deeper scientific interpretation, and explore new designs for copper‑based CO₂ conversion catalysts.

“I would never have obtained the same amount of catalytic data without the Flowrence®. Building a system like this is a multi‑year challenge. If I had done that myself, surely I could not have focused on developing both catalysts and process parameters.

We will see much more industrial use of high‑throughput catalytic testing in the future, especially for emerging processes such as CO₂ conversion.”

 

Looking Ahead

Laura’s experience underscores how essential Flowrence® is for modern catalyst research. Its high‑throughput design enabled her to generate far more catalytic data than would ever be possible in a traditional setup, allowing her to accelerate testing, refine catalyst designs, and explore CO₂‑conversion pathways with a depth that otherwise would have taken years. Because Flowrence® removes the need to build complex multi‑reactor systems from scratch, it freed her to focus on scientific innovation rather than instrumentation, a benefit she sees as crucial for the future expansion of high‑throughput CO₂‑conversion research.