Final Report Summary - HECTOR (MICROWAVE-ASSISTED MICROREACTORS: DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGHLY EFFICIENT GAS PHASE CONTACTOR WITH DIRECT CATALYST HEATING)
The focus of project HECTOR is the design of heterogeneous solid-gas catalytic reactors where a suitably designed catalyst can be directly heated using electromagnetic radiation. This replaces the conventional heating sequence (reactor wall - reaction fluid - catalyst) by a more efficient approach in which the catalyst is heated first, allowing the establishment of a solid-gas temperature gradient. A large part of the research effort has been devoted to microwave-based heating, but other alternative modes (e.g. laser or LED light) have also been investigated as a way to supply energy to the catalyst.
The results have shown that a significant solid-gas temperature gap can be maintained under stable reaction conditions, and this temperature difference can be exploited to obtain two types of advantages: i) energy savings (e.g. by operating with a lower gas phase temperature in the catalytic removal of pollutants at trace concentration levels in air) and ii) increases in reaction selectivity (e.g. by strongly lowering the contribution of homogeneous reactions in catalytic reactions at high temperature). In addition, significant knowledge has been gained on the heating modes of different types of solids (zeolites, perovskites, carbon-based materials, surface-functionalized silica) under microwave irradiation, and on the design of microwave-heated reactors.
The results have shown that a significant solid-gas temperature gap can be maintained under stable reaction conditions, and this temperature difference can be exploited to obtain two types of advantages: i) energy savings (e.g. by operating with a lower gas phase temperature in the catalytic removal of pollutants at trace concentration levels in air) and ii) increases in reaction selectivity (e.g. by strongly lowering the contribution of homogeneous reactions in catalytic reactions at high temperature). In addition, significant knowledge has been gained on the heating modes of different types of solids (zeolites, perovskites, carbon-based materials, surface-functionalized silica) under microwave irradiation, and on the design of microwave-heated reactors.