Dynamic and Selective Inductive Heating for Structured Catalytic Reactors – DISC

The DISC project involves three complementary research teams combining reactive process engineering and catalytic materials science. It deals with the combination of process intensification strategies and electrification applied to chemical production processes and reactors with the aim to make them more decarbonized, more environmentally neutral and also more energy-efficient. The DISC project aims to study in a detailed and systemic approach the combination of structured catalytic objects with selective magnetic induction heating and its dynamic operation.
Structured catalytic internals are often composite objects made of 3 materials: A catalytic active phase, a mesoporous support to disperse it and a structured skeleton to support the mesoporous support and propose an optimal structure for the different physical steps occurring in a reactor. In a first step, different combinations of materials having a different sensibility to magnetic radiofrequency heating will be used to prepare several family of catalytic objects with controlled and different magnetic properties. These objects will be fully characterized buy state of the art techniques and will be evaluated in a magnetically heated continuous reactor operated in steady state. Methycyclohexane dehydrogenation to toluene and hydrogen has been chosen as a challenging endothermic and catalytic model reaction. It presents numerous challenges to address for an efficient implementation in chemical hydrogen storage with liquid molecules. In a second step, DISC project will focus on the study and optimization of a dynamical operation of the inductive heating with the aim to increase the overall energy efficiency of the process and thus its sobriety. The issue of catalytic object stability with time on stream will be a key observable. Finally, DISC project will pave the way for future structured reactors and catalysts specific for this alternative heating mode.