I run mechanochemical reactions that involves the use of a large amount of catalyst (1:1 molar ratio to the reactant). When I try to understand the effect of amount of catalyst on the reaction, I find it very hard to get consistent results when I control the the ball to powder mass ratio (I am using the same number of balls, but keeping the total powder mass the same while adjusting the mass between the reactant and catalyst). This makes me think that I should probably control ball to powder volume. However, even though I know the rough bulk volume of two things at the beginning, the powder volume will always increase by an unknown amount once it is milled. So how should I control my reaction??
It is not easy to define the controls of your reaction. Don't think you can use a simple control or two to define your experiments. Breifly, you should consider the controls of mass, volume, particle size distribution (PSD), surface property (not all inclusive) of catalyst and reactant, as well as their ratios to define your reactions.
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