In its meeting of May 17th, the UGent executive board officially recognized KICK as new core facility. This ‘Knowledge centre for Intrinsic Chemical Kinetics’ gathers expertise, infrastructure and services that allow to determine intrinsic kinetics for thermochemical and catalytic reactions.

Intrinsic kinetics allow uncovering the rate coefficients, reaction orders and rate laws that connect reactant concentrations to reaction rates. By acquiring intrinsic kinetics, information is disclosed about the underlying mechanisms of chemical reactions and reaction rates can be extrapolated towards more extreme operating conditions for any reactor type.

KICK offers access to a series of laboratory setups for the investigation of chemical reactions, both in gas and liquid phase, with or without a solid catalyst. The current set of KICK setups is available within the Laboratory for Chemical Technology (LCT), where they are operated by experienced operators with extensive expertise. Supported by a range of spectroscopic, analytical and temperature-programmed characterization techniques, the results obtained contribute to the unravelling of reaction mechanisms, the optimization of operating conditions, the discovery of more efficient catalysts and the design of new reactor technologies.