The Supply and Installation of an Inter-Connected Dual Circulating Fluidised Bed Reactor

Optimisation of chemical and catalytic processes requires engineers, chemists and chemical engineers working together to forge an understanding of all facets of the processes, from the atomic precision of designing atomic active sites, to large-scale reactor design.

Many catalytic procedures default to a fixed-bed reactor, due to the range of control over flow rates, temperatures and pressures offered. However, such systems are typically limited to performing a single step of the full process, and are prone to catalytic deactivation. This makes it difficult to analyse catalytic performance under true working conditions.

A dual-bed fluidised bed reactor, with online mass-spectrometer sampling, is a unique alternative to overcome these issues using chemical looping technology, and offer greater insight into the performance of catalytic materials. It will take advantage of the opportunities that arise from the collegiate nature of the faculty and embrace further academic development through mentoring procedures with more experienced academics across the Faculty/School and Department.

Additionally, procurement of this equipment will also tackle some of the weaknesses in the Faculty through the development of a new cross-faculty technology that will play a crucial role in ongoing catalytic and chemical both at the University and across the UK, this will encourage the recruitment and retention of top researchers and academics.

We envisage this solution providing and playing a significant role in student engagement through individual and group student projects within the different schools and departments. It will provide a means of additional lab demonstrations of one of the most fundamental chemical engineering technologies towards the new program, a fluidised bed reactor. At present the University does not currently own a chemical looping catalytic fluidised bed reactor. As such this will be made available across the University via the University-wide Clean Carbon USRG. This has the potential to reach 150+ members, including external partners, thus promoting further exposure and ongoing research.