Standardization News

ASTM International’s catalysts committee (D32) has approved a new standard that describes a practice for analyzing particle size and shape of catalyst materials. The new practice will soon to be published soon under designation D8392.

According to ASTM International member Paul O’Brien, the standard fills a need for guidance on use of dynamic flow imaging instrumentation to calibrate and verify an imaging instrument to then measure size (width and length) of catalytic particles. The described procedure uses electronic board spacers to verify system measurement capability. 

“Board spacers are manufactured to a tight tolerance that is more precise than what is needed when measuring the catalyst particles, and they are readily available to anyone,” says O’Brien. “The standard also give guidance on how a user could use actual catalytic materials for this purpose. Using the standard will give users confidence that the imaging device is capable for measuring catalytic materials that can be spherically shaped, as well as rectangular or cylindrically shaped.”

O’Brien notes that the committee will be pursuing round robin testing for this standard and potentially developing a test method that would reference this standard and provide additional instruction on sampling and measuring differently shaped catalyst particles. All interested parties, particularly manufacturers, are welcome to join in these activities. JOIN ASTM.