The ICIQ-Energy Lab: a lab originally designed to analyse CO2 reduction products that offers much more

Maria José Hueso is working with the Energy Lab instrumentation.

Do you need to figure out which gas components generates your combustion procedures or the exact composition of any controlled atmosphere? Are you looking for instrumentation and specialized personnel to analyse aminoacids, peptides, fatty acids or sugars from your processed drinks or foods? Or even do you need to analyse the water after your manufacturing process?

The Energy Lab in the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ-CERCA) offers you a wide range of analytical applications for your industrial procedures. Initially created to analyse CO₂ reduction products, the instrumentation available in the laboratory can also be used for other purposes to meet the industry needs.

The laboratory’s analytical instrumentation includes two techniques: gas chromatography and ion chromatography.

The two gas chromatographs available, with special configurations to analyse mixtures, allow us to analyse gaseous samples to know their composition, both from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. The samples to analyse could be emission gases in any process (any reaction that generates gases as a product), combustion gases or gases in a controlled atmosphere.

On the other hand, ion chromatography allows us to analyse anions and cations in aqueous and non-aqueous electrolytes and polar molecules. The range of application is wide: analysis of ions (halides, acetate, oxalate, formate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium, sulfate…etc), peptides, nucleotides, fatty acids, amino acids, or sugars from different sources, such as food, drink, blood plasma, sweat or water.

Focused on its original purpose, this facility allows companies to determine the products obtained in electrochemical cells by using a combination of two analytical techniques and equipment to run the electrochemical reaction itself (potentiostat, mass flow controller and the required gases setup).

Industry access to this facility means state-of-the-art equipment and highly qualified staff with specific knowledge devoted to solving industrial challenges.

This facility is part of the project:

CEX2019-000925-S (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033):