This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Objectives and Methods to be Employed
Chemical processing frequently requires vaporizing liquid reagents, mixing, and heterogeneous reaction in the presence of a solid catalyst, followed by product separation. In traditional large scale chemical reactors each process is typically carried out in dedicated components, optimized for their given function, and linked together to form the overall system. Scaled down versions of these large-scale chemical plants have been considered for distributed applications, in particular hydrogen generation from hydrocarbon liquid feedstock, but the reactor design based on the individual unit operation approach has been shown to quickly become sub-optimal especially for space-constrained applications. To address this challenge of reactor scale-down, the concept of multifunctional reactors has emerged, in which synergistic combination of different unit operations is explored to achieve improved performance.
The Direct Droplet Impingement Reactor (DDIR) is a new concept for multifunctional chemical processing of high energy density liquid fuels at very high rate, enabling development of high density power conversion technologies. This project focuses on establishing fundamental understanding of the complex interplay between the fuel delivery, evaporation, and reaction in DDIR reactors, resulting in an experimentally-validated methodology for optimal design and operation of this new class of reactors.
Intellectual Merit
New theoretical and experimental tools will be developed to carry out a comprehensive study of the DDIR reactor concept. The following contributions are expected to result from the proposed investigation: (1) Theoretical analysis and simulations will yield the DDIR design map(s) that allow determination of optimal operating points using conversion rates and selectivity as performance metrics; (2) Theoretically-derived optimal design map(s) will be experimentally validated, demonstrating the predicted trends in DDIR reactor performance. The experimental validation will be instrumental in establishing a degree of confidence in extending the general theoretical framework developed to other reacting systems; and (3) Exploratory studies of the forced unsteady-state operation of the DDIR reactor will be undertaken, via experiments and simulations. It is conjectured that by changing these forcing time scales relative to the natural time scales of the system, improvements in time-averaged reactor performance may result.
Broader Impacts
If successful, this research could provide a significant benefit to society with potentially transformational benefits to a wide range of engineering applications, including development of a new reactor technology for portable and distributed power generation and efficient chemical processing for a broad range of liquid fuels, including renewable energy sources. This research will advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning by incorporating the research results into several academic courses and through undergraduate research opportunities. Broadening of participation by underrepresented groups will be achieved by engaging graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented groups, including graduates of HBMUs: Clark Atlanta, Spellman, and Morehouse Colleges. The work will enhance the infrastructure for research and education by developing and maintaining facilities for MEMS fabrication and characterization at the PI's institution. Broad dissemination to enhance scientific and technological understanding will be achieved through several activities. First, active industry involvement will be facilitated to enable the transfer of research results into industry practice. Second, research results will be disseminated through technical papers and presentations in engineering forums, as well as special events that the PI will organize for local high school students.
