SFB 1615: SMART Reactors for Future Process Engineering

为了应对气候变化，建立更具弹性的供应链，从化石原料向可再生原料的转变是必不可少的。然而，可再生原材料的可得性和质量随季节和地质变化而波动（也受（地理）政治危机的影响）。因此，社会迫切需要能够灵活应对原材料波动特性的工艺和反应器。为了实现这种适应，需要非常高水平的过程控制：必须使用适当的传感器在反应器内连续地监测压力、温度、浓度和分散相。必须实现运行过程中的局部过程控制和调整。这需要对所有相关的运输过程和反应步骤有深入和基本的了解，以便为operando和现场过程优化提供快速可靠的建模和模拟。对这些主题的基础研究将使SMART反应堆技术成为可能，SMART反应堆将更可持续的可再生资源转化为不同的产品（多用途）和自主（自适应），这将导致更具弹性的过程，更好地在规模和地点之间转移。在我们的设想中，自主反应堆可以使用集成传感器在现场测量当地条件，这些传感器将化学或电信号传输到反应堆的集成响应内部组件（执行器）。这些执行器自适应，因此在局部水平上优化过程。因此，本CRC将研究如何检测反应器中的局部工艺条件，在模型中制定并转化为行动，以始终确保具有恒定产品质量和最大产量的最佳工艺条件，尽管来自可再生资源的进料质量波动。作为氢经济反应的示例，使用甘油氢解制丙二醇，其中包括生物化学，化学和机械转化步骤，例如用于流体-流体和固体-流体系统。为了实现我们的愿景，来自汉堡工业大学和五个研究机构的物理学家、化学家、数学家和数据科学家在工艺工程、材料科学和电气工程之间进行跨学科合作，使专业知识和独特的实验设施成为可能。从世界上最明亮的x射线源，用于研究物质的最小组成块，到世界上最大的磁共振断层成像，用于多相反应器的过程成像，未来过程在所有相关尺度上的局限性将被发现和解决。该CRC旨在为SMART反应堆铺平道路，SMART反应堆能够快速适应不断变化的原材料、能源供应和反应条件。

To face climate change and create more resilient supply chains a transformation from fossil feedstocks to renewable raw materials is indispensable. However, renewable raw materials fluctuate seasonally and geologically in their availability and quality (also due to (geo)political crises). Therefore, society urgently requires processes and reactors that can flexibly respond to fluctuating characteristics of raw materials. To enable such adaptation very high level of process control is needed: pressures, temperatures, concentrations and dispersed phases must be monitored within the reactors continuously and in situ using appropriate sensors. Local process control and adjustment during operation must be realized. This requires a deep and fundamental understanding of all relevant transport processes and reaction steps to provide a fast and reliable modelling and simulation for an operando and in situ process optimisation. Fundamental research on these topics will enable technologies for SMART reactors, that convert renewable resources which are more Sustainable into different products (Multipurpose) and that are Autonomously (self-adaptive), which will lead to more Resilient processes that are better Transferable between scales and locations. In our vision the autonomous reactor can in situ measure the local conditions using integrated sensors, which transfer the chemical or electrical signal to the integrated responsive internal components of the reactor (actuators). These actuators self-adapt and therefore optimize the process on a local level. Therefore, this CRC will investigate how local process conditions in reactors can be detected, formulated in models and translated into actions to always ensure optimal process conditions with constant product quality and maximum yield despite fluctuating quality of the feed coming from renewable resources. As exemplary reaction from hydrogen economy, the hydrogenolysis of glycerol to propanediols is used, which includes biochemical, chemical and mechanical transformation steps exemplarily for fluid-fluid and solid-fluid systems. To achieve our vision, interdisciplinary collaboration between process engineering, materials science and electrical engineering with physicists, chemists, mathematicians and data scientists from Hamburg University of Technology and five research institutions enables the focusing of expertise and unique experimental facilities. From the most brilliant X-ray sources in the world for investigating the tiniest building blocks of matter to the world´s largest Magnetic Resonance Tomograph for process imaging in multiphase reactors, the limitations of future processes on all relevant scales will be discovered and tackled. This CRC sets out to pave the way to SMART reactors, which are able to adapt quickly to changing raw materials, energy supply and reaction conditions.