Investigation of the reaction process unter engine-like conditions

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Robert Schießl
• Subject Area: Energy Process Engineering ; Chemical and Thermal Process Engineering ; Technical Thermodynamics
• Term: from 2013 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 229243862

The global goal of the project MM1 is the development and optimization of processes for polygeneration, ie processes that can have several beneficial aspects. These include e.g. the reciprocal, controllable conversion of mechanical into chemical energy or the presentation of chemically valuable substances. A prototype of a machine that can perform such processes is a piston-cylinder device that can be used as an internal combustion engine (in which chemical energy is converted into mechanical energy) or as a mechanically driven chemical reactor (mechanical energy in chemical energy). The knowledge about these processes is to be improved by investigations on a Rapid Compression Machine (RCM), which represents an experimentally well-accessible version of such a piston-cylinder device.The results achieved in the current project phase have shown potential for a further improvement of polygeneration processes (with regard to the yield of useful quantities, such as substance turnover).In particular, from the work of the current period, the following concrete goals result.In many of the investigated processes (mainly dry reforming of CO2, production of C2H2 from CH4), a further increase of the material yield would be physically possible. However, this could not be realized experimentally or technically, or only with great additional effort, partly because of kinetic obstacles. This applies v.a. For very fuel-rich mixtures that have proven to be promising, but where the initiation of the reaction with the previous measures have already exhausted the achievable in the RCM areas of initial conditions (temperature, compression ratio). Above all, the production of high compression temperatures required the addition of high proportions (up to 95 percent by mole) of noble gases with their low heat capacity. Such measures are usually rather unfavourable for practical applications.The goal is therefore to initiate chemical reactions even in such inert mixtures under conditions that are feasible in RCM (and similar compaction machines) (compression ratios, initial temperatures and pressures).

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1993: Multi-functional Conversion of Chemical Species and Energy
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Ulrich Maas