Content description of the project
Process electrification is a hot topic in the chemical industry nowadays. In order to mitigate fossil fuels, it is necessary to investigate the electrification of various chemical processes to explore different ways of energy supply. Biomass is a versatile and abundant natural material that can be converted to many useful value-added compounds used in different industrial branches, such as solvent and chemical manufacturing, fuel industry, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and so on. A promising bio-based compound conversion electrification technique is magentic heating (MH). MH is an umbrella term which covers different heating mechanisms, whereas the most well-known ones are induction heating and magnetic hysteresis heating. The main idea of magnetic heating is direct local heat supply to the catalysts used in chemical processes, rather than using conventionally heated reactor systems, where the reaction mixture is heated from the outside inward (Figure 1). With the application of external alternating magnetic field (AMF), contactless heating of the reaction mixture is achieved, since the catalyst used in the process also acts as a heat source. Magnetic heating ensures rapid heating and cooling of the reaction mixture, while also keeping the reaction mixture cooler in comparison to the catalyst surface, keeping the reaction conditions milder. This property is extremely useful for bio-based compounds due to their sensitivity to elevated temperatures.
Figure 1: A schematic representation of the temperature profile in magnetically- and conventionally-heated reactor system.
