Spatially-resolved gas concentration, surface species and temperature measurement for heterogeneous catalyzed reactions using an optical accessible channel reactor.

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New feedstocks and materials are introduced into the energy and chemical industries. The use of a catalyst is key to the development of environmentally friendly and economically feasible conversion processes (e.g. biomass, waste, and CO2 into fuels and chemicals). Reactor engineering research, catalysts design and understanding of the reaction mechanisms are of primary importance in optimizing not only product yields but also managing heat requirements. Modeling these catalyzed reactions is advantageous as it allows to easily and cost effective study the influence of operating conditions on the reactor and overall process performance. A good model can only be obtained if all relevant processes in a chemical reactor and their interactions are represented adequately. For this, accurate kinetic models are necessary that are obtained from experiments only.**Usually small laboratory reactors with a few hundred milligram of catalyst are used in which the gas compositions are measured at the reactor exit only. Thus, a single experiment results in a single data point. To avoid excessive temperature changes due to the nature of the reactions, highly diluted gas mixtures (>90% inert gas), diluted catalyst beds are used, and the reactor is operated at low conversion (<10%). These experimental conditions might be far away from industrial relevant settings.**The aim of the proposed research is the development of innovative instrumentation tools and experimental methodologies to build and evaluate sophisticated kinetics models for catalyzed reaction networks in the field of sustainable energy conversion. In detail, I plan to develop spatially-resolved measurement techniques that allows gathering information on gas composition, catalyst surface species and temperature profiles along the reactor axis. By doing so reaction kinetics, reaction mechanisms and transfer phenomena can be investigated in much more detail. Within this research program the reaction network of the production of synthetic natural gas (SNG) from biomass will be studied. The thermochemical conversion of biomass to SNG via gasification, gas cleaning, catalytic methanation and fuel upgrading is a process that has again become prominent. It allows to convert the chemical energy bound in a solid carbon form into a gaseous product, which can be easily transported in already existing natural gas pipelines. Bio-SNG could theoretically provide up to 60% of current natural gas demand in Canada, which makes this process very interesting for our domestic energy market.*The kinetic data for this reaction network, will be experimentally obtained in a newly designed optically accessible catalytic plate reactor. The bottom of the plate reactor is coated with a thin catalyst layer. The top of the reactor is closed with a special designed glass window through which the catalyst surface temperature profile is measured by means of infrared thermography. Spatially-resolved measurement of the gas composition is carried out with a thin movable sampling capillary achieving a high spatial resolution of ~200 µm, and thus a large number of data points for a single experiment. The concentration difference between two spatial positions is differential, but complete conversion can be achieve. Catalyst surface species along the reactor axis are measured by means of infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). **The developed tools can also be applied to investigate other catalyzed reactions such as reduction of NOx emissions in the automotive industry. The net result of this work will be a deeper understanding of catalyzed reaction mechanisms through the combination of comprehensive experimental observation and theoretical modeling, and trained personnel (4 graduate and 5 undergraduate students).