2025 AIChE Annual Meeting

(561f) Design of Microwave Reactor for Simultaneous Production of Ethylene and Ammonia

Authors

Md Mizanur Rahman - Presenter, West Virginia University
Jianli Hu, West Virginia University
There is current interest in the electrification of the chemical industry where the chemical reactor is heated electrically in place of burning hydrocarbon fuels in a jacket. The ability of electrical energy to be turned on and off rapidly allows for interesting reactor configurations that are not easily available for reactors with conventional heating jackets. In this talk, we will explore the idea of rapidly switching on and off a heating source powered by microwave energy and utilize this rapid heating and cooling to simultaneously produce both ethylene from ethane (which is endothermic) as well as ammonia (which is exothermic). One advantage of using microwave energy is the fact that it is possible to selectively heat the catalyst surface but not the catalyst support (which is transparent to microwave energy) and thereby use significantly less energy compared to joule heating. Furthermore, the use of catalysts for ethane cracking as well as ammonia production allows for these reactions to occur at lower temperatures and pressures. Laboratory-scale data will be utilized to develop reaction kinetics for ethane cracking as well as ammonia synthesis. Reactor design equations will be developed and solved in COMSOL to study the effect of microwave heating, temperature distribution, and reaction performance and power on the yield of ethylene and ammonia. An optimization scheme will be developed to find the best configuration under several different scenarios. This flexible heating configuration also results in interesting control problems that will be discussed in this research.