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2016
Conference Paper
Titel
Micro-Reactors made by lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM)
Abstract
Heterogeneous catalysts or static mixers are widely applied in chemical industry. Regardless the extensive research efforts on the development of new catalyst supports or static mixers with low-pressure drop, the industrial application of such structures is limited to differently shaped extrudates only, especially honeycombs. However, particularly structured components made of ceramics could be advantageous in many applications, especially catalyst supports or static mixers and in small-scale decentralized plants, that have gained increasing interest in recent years, e.g. for energy generation or chemical syntheses. Additive manufacturing techniques allow the preparation of tailor-made structures for specific reactions or applications with a high degree of freedom concerning the design. The Fraunhofer IKTS uses the lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM) technology for the development of modified honeycombs with wall openings between and spoilers inside the different channels to combine enhanced mass transfer and low-pressure drop. In addition, channels with varying diameters can be realized. In this context, the application of simulation tools (multiphysics Computational Fluid Dynamic codes) and computer aided engineering is of high interest. These tools offer a cost effective ""virtual"" testing and characterization platform for analysis, evaluation and optimization of advantageous structures over a wide design parameter range. The prospects of tailor-made ceramic structures as well as the potential of the LCM-technology is presented in the following study.
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