Reactors alternative energy forms

Reactors Using Alternative Energy Forms for Green Synthetic Routes and New Functional Products... 

Houlding T, Rebrov EV. Application of alternative energy forms in catalytic reactor engineering. Green Processes. Synth. 2012 1(1) 19-31. 

What are the opportunities for using forms of energy that do not lead to CO2 formation Nuclear power from fission reactors presents problems with the handling and deposition of nuclear waste. Fusion reactors are more appealing, but may need several decades of further development. However, solar and wind energy offer realistic alternatives. 

In chemical micro process technology there is a clear dominance of pressure-driven flows over alternative mechanisms for fluid transport However, any kind of supplementary mechanism allowing promotion of mixing is a useful addition to the toolbox of chemical engineering. Also in conventional process technology, actuation of the fluids by external sources has proven successful for process intensification. An example is mass transfer enhancement by ultrasonic fields which is utilized in sonochemical reactors [143], There exist a number of microfluidic principles to promote mixing which rely on input of various forms of energy into the fluid. 

Electrochemical reactors (cells, tanks) are used for the practical realization of electrolysis or the electrochemical generation of electrical energy. In developing such reactors one must take into account the purpose of the reactor as well as the special features of the reactions employed in it. Most common is the classical reactor type with plane-parallel electrodes in which positive and negative electrodes alternate and all electrodes having the same polarity are connected in parallel. Reactors in which the electrodes are concentric cylinders and convection of the liquid electrolyte can be realized by rotation of one of the electrodes are less common. In batteries, occasionally the electrodes are in the form of two long ribbons with a separator in between which are wound up as a double spiral. 

Reactor accidents have been greatly publicized, but there has not been one death associated with an American nuclear reactor accident. However the dependence on automobiles results in more than 40,000 deaths each year. All forms of energy generation, including alternatives like solar and wind involve industrial deaths in the mining, manufacture, and transport of materials they require. Nuclear energy requires the smallest amount of resources and thus has the lowest risk of deaths. 

Novel processing methods, such as integration of reaction and one or more unit operations in so-called multifunctional reactors and integration of two or more separation techniques in hybrid separations Use of alternative forms and sources of energy for chemical processing Novel methods of process/plant development and operation... 

The reaction of metals with energetic hydrogen or deuterium ions is important in nuclear reactors. Ion beams may be generated thermally and allowed to interact with the metal, and the reaction products then may be examined by matrix-isolation techniques. Alternatively, metal atoms are sputtered from a cathodic surface by a low-energy plasma. If or at low P is added to the discharge, then molecular species are formed by the interaction with the sputtered metal atoms. Applied to Cu this technique leads to the identification of CuH and CuD in Ar matrices by their IR spectra. The reacting species are believed to be atomic Cu and H or D formed in the hollow-cathode discharge . 

Films were formed by the evaporation of methylene chloride solutions on one inside surface of a quartz fluorescence cell or on quartz plates. Irradiations were carried out in a Rayonet Photochemical Reactor fitted with low-pressure mercury lamps. The incident radiation intensity on the films was 10 6 Einstein cm 2 min+1. Absorbed intensity is based on energy absorbed by the styrene units of the polymers for the alternating copolymer this was 0.95 of the total energy absorbed at 254 nm. Film thicknesses were of the order of 25 / ni a thickness effect was not observed in the 10-40 / m range, but a small correction factor of 1 — T (254 nm), where T is transmittance, was applied where T was greater than zero. 

---