(454d) Open Cellular Monoliths for Structured Catalytic Reactors: Preparation and Characterization

Structuring concepts for catalytic reactors have drawn much attention in recent years as a promising option to achieve process intensification in the chemical industries. However, for the case of solid foam monoliths the quantitative understanding of the structural influence of the local foam structure on the flow field and the heat and mass transport (and thus on the reactor performance) is still limited. Hence further research in this direction is needed which is the motivation for our work. In part 1, Preparation and Characterization, we are illustrating recent trends and advances in the field of hierarchical zeolitic structured reactors.

Structured monolithic reactors can be considered as a very open porous (macro porous) system in which the surfaces can be utilized as the carrier for active components useful as catalyst for the desired reaction. Such a surface modification (functionalization) of the monolith surface with an additional porous material of a different pore size regime results in a hierarchically organized system. In this regard, the use of appropriate materials such as microporous zeolites allows for the development of a hierarchical organization of the porosity on either two (micro/macro) or three (micro/meso/macro) different porosity levels. Thus, hierarchically organized structured zeolitic composites can benefit in their applications from both, the zeolitic function (e.g. separation, activity) and the function of the support (e.g. pressure drop reduction, improved mass and heat transport).