Microreactor Set-Ups for Screening of Droplet-Encapsulated Catalyst Particles: Fluidic and Electronic Interfacing

The use of microfluidics for analysis of biological and chemical compounds is flourishing, with droplet microfluidics being well suited for high-throughput single substance analysis. Nowadays, many new experimental set-ups are reported that combine various fields and expertise, including, among others, microfluidics, optics, electronics, chemistry, biology, etc. This work aims to highlight the engineering effort that goes into the development and realization of experimental set-ups for obtaining ‘good’ scientific data. High quality research and results stand or fall with the quality of the set-ups that are used for obtaining said results. Unfortunately, replication of these custom-made set-ups (as well as reproducibility/gathering of data) may be hampered if not all parts are sufficiently/detailed documented in the (Electronic) Supplementary Information ((E)SI). In this work, we present detailed descriptions of the fluidic, electronic, and optical interfacings that are developed to make a microfluidic platform for the high-throughput, fluorescent-based screening of Fluidic Catalytic Cracking (FCC) catalyst particle acidity and the subsequent sorting of the most active catalyst particles.