Stanford University researchers have their sights set on decarbonizing industrial processes like thermochemical reactions using renewable energy.
The industrial sector represents about 30% of all U.S. energy-related carbon pollution, so it's ripe for innovation to achieve our net-zero goals by 2050.
Traditional thermochemical reactors use dirty fuels to heat fluids and circulate them through pipes to power their industrial processes, as Environmental+Energy Leader shared. Those methods not only release planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, but they're bulky and inefficient, losing heat energy along the way.
Jonathan Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, has designed a new type of reactor that generates heat directly through induction, which is smaller, cheaper, and far more efficient than existing industrial methods.
The goal was to heat a three-dimensional space in a way that's similar to how an induction stovetop works but with far greater efficiency. They used high-frequency currents and poorly conducting materials like ceramic for more accurate temperature control in order to inductively heat a lattice with plenty of surface area.
The shape of the lattice offers lots of voids that can be filled with catalysts, which are the materials being heated to initiate chemical reactions.
"You're heating a large surface area structure that is right next to the catalyst, so the heat you're generating gets to the catalyst very quickly to drive the chemical reactions," Fan said in the Stanford Report.
"Plus, it's simplifying everything. You're not transferring heat from somewhere else and losing some along the way, you don't have any pipes going in and out of the reactor – you can fully insulate it. This is ideal from an energy management and cost point of view."
As a proof-of-concept test, the researchers used the reactor to power a reverse water gas shift reaction. With high heat, it can turn captured carbon dioxide into a gas used in sustainable fuels.
The demonstration was successful, showing that the reactor was over 85% efficient, converting nearly all the electrical energy into usable heat, as the report detailed.
"As we make these reactors even larger or operate them at even higher temperatures, they just get more efficient," Fan continued. "That's the story of electrification – we're not just trying to replace what we have, we're creating even better performance."
The group plans to adapt their ideas for capturing carbon dioxide and manufacturing cement and is working with oil and gas companies to see how they could improve their processes, as well.
The U.S. Department of Energy's own decarbonization roadmap pinpointed five key industries that need improvement, including petroleum refining, chemicals, and cement, all a perfect fit for this new technology.
"Electrification affords us the opportunity to reinvent infrastructure, breaking through existing bottlenecks and shrinking and simplifying these types of reactors, in addition to decarbonizing them," Fan explained.
"Industrial decarbonization is going to require new, systems-level approaches, and I think we're just getting started."
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