Powering photoreactions with inductively coupled wireless light emitters located inside the reaction medium

光催化是通过光（光子）的存在激活或加速化学反应。 在过去几十年中，基础科学和应用科学的重要性迅速扩大，特别是因为它们经常被报告为资源效率和可持续性。光子基本上是无痕的，在阳光的情况下，是碳中性的试剂。然而，这些反应的工业实施在技术上具有挑战性。工程上的限制，如照明效率和需要特殊的反应器设计，是这些工艺仍然局限于少数选定情况的主要原因。特别是在高催化剂负载的情况下，光进入反应器的穿透深度（通常不超过几毫米）是限制因素。用于这些过程的反应器需要与其体积相比大的表面。非常薄的反应器显示出更好的照明效率，但在放大中是非常面积密集的。因此，对特定昂贵的光反应器的需求通常是工业规模实施的实质性障碍。内部照明可以是一种解决方案。这是一种很有前途的技术，实现良好的照明效率，并使反应器类型的选择更加灵活。与经典的内部照明方法相比，我们提出了谐振电感耦合（RIC）的内部光源，进一步称为无线光发射器（WLEs）的供电。由于光源本身可以容易地添加到反应器或与反应器分离，因此在选择合适的反应器时允许更大的灵活性。甚至可以使用标准的多用途反应堆。在这个项目中，我们提出利用WLE为光催化反应提供动力，这将极大地有助于广泛的应用。谐振电感耦合（RIC）显示出LED设备无线供电的巨大潜力，因为可能的能量传输效率已经>75%，并且水的导电性对能量传输效率没有负面影响。由于RIC已经有许多众所周知的应用，例如智能手机和牙刷的充电，因此可以预期未来发展的协同效应。由RIC供电的LED已经成功地被引入作为照明光生物反应器的一种手段。所采用的磁场在约178kHz的频率下为ImT（磁通量密度）的量级，并且与感应炉灶面相当。虽然已经提出磁场效应（MFE）影响半导体颗粒中的扩散和电荷分离，但这仅在更高数量级的磁场下观察到，并且结果存在争议。此外，对反应性的积极影响的报告远远超过负面影响，因此这不太可能在设想的应用中出现问题。

Photocatalysis is the activation or acceleration of a chemical reaction by the presence of light (photons). The importance of photocatalysis in fundamental and applied sciences expanded rapidly over the last decades, especially as they are often reported as resource-efficient and sustainable. Photons are essentially traceless and, in the case of sunlight, carbon neutral reagents.However, industrial implementation of these reactions is technically challenging. Engineering limitations such as illumination efficiency and the need for special reactor designs are the main reasons for those processes still being limited to a few selected cases. Especially in the case of high catalyst loadings the penetration depth of light into the reactor, which typically does not exceed a few millimeters, is a limiting factor. Reactors for those processes need a large surface compared to their volume. Very thin reactors show better illumination efficiencies but are very area intensive in scale-up. Therefore, the requirement of specific expensive photoreactors is often a substantial obstacle for implementation in industrial scales. Internal illumination can be a solution. It is a promising technique that achieves good illumination efficiency and enables a more flexible choice of reactor types.Compared to classical methods for internal illumination, we propose resonant inductive coupling (RIC) for the powering of internal light sources, further called Wireless Light Emitters (WLEs). Since the light sources themselves can easily be added to or separated from the reactor, it allows for more flexibility in selecting a suitable reactor. Even standard multi-purpose reactors could be used. In this project, we propose utilizing WLEs to power photocatalytic reactions, which could tremendously help to wide-spread applications. Resonant inductive coupling (RIC) shows great potential for wireless powering of LED devices as the possible energy transfer efficiency is already >75% and the conductivity of water shows no negative impact on the energy transfer efficiency. Since there are already many well-known applications for RIC such as charging of smart phones and tooth brushes, synergetic effects in future developments can be expected. LEDs powered by RIC were already successfully introduced as a means to illuminate photobioreactors. The employed magnetic field is in the order of 1mT (magnetic flux density) at a frequency of about 178 kHz and is comparable to induction cooktops. While a magnetic field effect (MFE) has been proposed to affect diffusion and charge separation in the semiconductor particles, this was only observed for magnetic fields orders of magnitude higher and with controversial results. Also, the reports of positive effects on the reactivity far outweigh the negative ones so this is very unlikely to present a problem in the envisioned application.