Vessels and tanks interconnected with pipes are the current construction paradigm in the chemical process industries. For many applications, similar processing can be achieved by narrow-gap architecture scaled up through the use of banks and modules. The PI plans to look at the narrow-gap approach, which is a massively parallel and modular approach to chemical process construction. For this method, unit operations, including reactors, separation processes, mixing, and electrochemical processes are designed in architectures comprised of plates and gaskets fastened face-to-face. Mass transport for a unit operation or between unit operations is distributed evenly through the plates and generally in a direction normal to the faces of the plates. Multiple design degrees of freedom are set by the architecture of the plates and gaskets - resolving flow patterns, residence time distributions, heat transfer processes, and disengaging processes.
The goals of this Small Grant for Exploratory Research program are to: (1) construct a working module demonstrating the concept and illustrating the narrow-gap approach as superior to traditional process architecture, and (2) evaluate and develop processes unique to the architecture such as porous-media based plug flow reactors, membrane integration, and fluid flow networking. To demonstrate the method, the narrow-gap module architecture will be applied to the water-gas shift reaction.
