Raman Measurements in the Hydroformylation of Decene with Laser Powers of 1 mW in Ex Zones

Abstract

A custom-made Raman setup is improved and adjusted to allow its use in Ex zones by using a 1-mW laser and no optical focusing elements. The application under consideration is the hydroformylation of decene to undecanal, which must take place under explosion protection. To investigate the dispersive mixture, a separation takes place in a phase separation cell in which the Raman probe performs measurements. It can be shown that, with the use of highly sensitive detectors, even very low excitation powers can lead to a processable signal, and thus the application of Raman measurement technology far below the requirements of explosion protection is possible.