A virtual instrument approach for automation of temperature programmed desorption

LabVIEW provides a method to create a user friendly automated Virtual Instrument that can be programmed to perform simultaneous display and control functions from several different laboratory instruments. This note describes how LabVIEW was used to create a temperature programmed desorption virtual instrument to facilitate easy control of sample temperature and data collection and handling. The program is easy to use, fairly versatile for different types of catalysis samples, and the data collected can be imported into most spreadsheets. The program as written controls the temperature in a linear fashion with very little deviation from the user defined ramp.