Temperature-programmed reduction is a technique for the characterization of solid materials and is often used in the field of heterogeneous catalysis to find the most efficient reduction conditions,[1] an oxidized catalyst precursor is submitted to a programmed temperature rise while a reducing gas mixture is flowed over it.
This sample vessel is positioned in a furnace with temperature control equipment.
The air originally present in the container is flushed out with an inert gas (nitrogen, argon).
If a reduction takes place at a certain temperature, hydrogen is consumed, which is recorded by the detector.
This is due to the potential for varying hydrogen concentrations at the inlet, so the decrease in this number may not be precise, however as the starting concentration of water will be zero, any increase can be measured more accurately.