| abstract |
The invention relates to methods, using radiography, for the analysis of chemical compounds, such as polymers, specialty chemicals, and catalysts. In particular, the methods of the invention provide methods, which may be carried out in a highly parallel manner, for the synthesis and analysis of chemical compounds in a high-throughput or combinatorial manner. According to the invention, a substrate having a plurality of reaction regions is employed. Next, polymerization, synthesis or adsorption steps are carried out with one or more radiolabeled reagents. The radioactivity in the resulting product provides a measure of various physical properties. For instance, the methods of the invention may be used to determine the comonomer content of polymers, the productivity of catalysts, and/or the incorporation of a reagent in a specialty chemical. In addition, the invention provides means for determining a variety of chemical and physical properties of porous catalysts, including surface area, the number of active sites, the number of acidic or basic sites, pore size distribution, and chemisorption. |