Induction Heating: An Enabling Technology for the Heat Management in Catalytic Processes

Abstract

This perspective illustrates the electromagnetic induction heating technology for a rational heat control in catalytic heterogeneous processes. It mainly focuses on the remarkable advantages of this approach in terms of process intensification, energy efficiency, reactor setup simplification, and safety issues coming from the use of radio frequency heated susceptors/catalysts in fixed-bed reactors under flow operational conditions. It is a real enabling technology that allows a catalytic process to go beyond reactor bounds, reducing inefficient energy transfer issues and heat dissipation phenomena while improving reactor hydrodynamics. Hence, it allows pushing catalytic processes to the limits of their kinetics. Undoubtedly, inductive heating represents a twist in performing catalysis. Indeed, it offers unique solutions to overcome heat transfer limitations (i.e. slow heating/cooling rates, nonuniform heating environments, low energy efficiency) to those endo- and exothermic catalytic transformations that make use of conventional heating methodologies.

Structured Ni@NaA zeolite supported on silicon carbide foam catalysts for catalytic carbon dioxide methanation

“…Importantly, in situ infrared thermography was employed to examine the surface temperatures and development of hotspots due to the exothermicity of the reaction on structured catalysts based on different foams, showing that both SiC and aluminium foams (with the intrinsically high thermal conductivity) presented the improved heat transfer than alumina foams. In addition, electromagnetic induction heating was applied to regulate heat transfer in structured catalysts (e.g., Ni supported on carbon felt) for catalytic CO 2 methanation process, being able to improve heating/cooling rates with uniform heating environments and high energy efficiency 24‐28 …”

Engineering Iron–Nickel Nanoparticles for Magnetically Induced CO2Methanation in Continuous Flow

“…Magnetic induction has recently appeared as an alternative heating source for heterogeneous catalytic reactions . It consists in applying high‐frequency alternating magnetic fields to ferromagnetic materials to release heat through hysteresis losses.…”

“…Magnetic induction has recently appeared as an alternative heating source for heterogeneous catalytic reactions. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] It consists in applying high-frequency alternating magnetic fields to ferromagnetic materials to release heat through hysteresis losses. The target temperature is reached within few seconds and the energy is directly transferred inside the material without the need for heating the whole reactor system.…”

Subsupercritical Water Generated by Inductive Heating Inside Flow Reactors Facilitates the Claisen Rearrangement

“…7,8 In recent years, we have added inductive heating 9 to the existing portfolio of enabling technologies in organic chemistry 10 and have shown that it can be ideally combined with fluid dynamics to create high-temperature and high-pressure conditions. 11 First studies on sigmatropic rearrangements under flow conditions in organic solvents at 240 °C were described by us. 12 We also demonstrated that water can be heated to near supercritical conditions under fluid dynamics conditions, for example, as a solvent in the continuous synthesis of the atypical antipsychotic drug iloperidone.…”