Overview

Event organised by SCI's Fine Chemicals Group and IChemE Catalysis Special Interest Group.

The production of chemicals employing, for example, hydrogenation of alkynes, nitrobenzoic acid and methyl styrene, and oxidations of bulk feedstocks such as glycerol, glucose and ethanol demand new innovations in catalysis and three-phase reactor design to enhance efficiency and selectivity towards the desired products. In parallel, the field of energy production has rapidly advanced in recent years and led to an increased demand for hydrogen production from steam reforming and the water-gas shift reaction, and the manufacture of synthetic fuels using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. One outcome from global warming on transportation and energy is likely to be a push for companies to find new, more complex feedstocks and a move away from a reliance on gasoline and natural gas. Likewise, the purification of air and water, including the catalytic reduction of pollutants such as NOx will require new approaches.

Traditional reactors such as stirred tanks, packed beds and bubble columns can offer solutions for large-scale applications, but arguably suffer from problems such as large inventory, volume, and mass transport resistances, and require downstream separation technologies to isolate the products. This meeting will focus on alternative technologies which aim to provide intimate contact between the catalyst surface and flow of reactants, reduce transport resistances, and enhance mixing, mass transfer and product yields. Integration of the reactor with heat exchange and separation processes can provide more compact, low energy and inherently safer process designs although fine-tuning, experimental diagnostic studies and modelling of processes are required to understand and optimise such reactors for particular applications.

The event will be suitable for a broad range of attendees from the PhD student to Professor, and Junior Engineer to Technical Manager, however primarily the audience is expected to be comprised of PhD students and early-career researchers and the invited speakers are mostly industrialists and professors.

A mix of keynote, oral and poster presentations will showcase the advances being made in multifunctional reactors for applications across a range of industries from fine chemicals to pharmaceuticals, energy and environmental technologies. Integration of reactors with structured catalysts, heat exchange and separation strategies, including membrane technologies will be a major focus alongside scale-up strategies for application in industry, as well as ‘scale-out’ by ‘numbering up’ which will serve to highlight industrialisation of the developed reactors.

Programme

The programme of invited speakers is already confirmed whilst the flash presentations and posters will be confirmed closer to the date of the meeting.

View programme >>

Organising committee

• Prof. Joe Wood, University of Birmingham, IChemE Catalysis SIG Chairperson
• Dr Liam Cox, University of Birmingham
• Dr Jiawei Wang, Aston University
• Dr Steven Hilton, UCL
• Dr Fred Hancock, consultant, formerly of Johnson Matthey.

The material presented has not been peer-reviewed. Any opinions are the presenter's own and do not necessarily represent those of IChemE or the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Special Interest Group. The information is given in good faith but without any liability on the part of IChemE.