RSA CE&C 2015-2021 Group descriptions

40 Research facilities High-pressure TGA, inline (flow) NMR, inline (flow) FTIR for gas phase and liquid phase, inline UV-vis, ASAP and Flex3 (Micromeretics), mercury porosimetry, SEM, photo-SDR, numerous multistage spinning disc reactors (Hastelloy, SS316, PMMA), various microflow setups with inline GC, high-pressure (50 bar) 5 kW chlor-alkali electrolyzer, high-pressure (50 bar) 5 kW water electrolyzer, spinning disc electrolyzer, several membrane permeation setups up to 60 bar, HPLC, GC-MS, various potentiostats and rotating disc electrodes, membrane production lines for Pd, and ceramic and carbon membranes. Prospects Development of the research field The importance of sustainable, circular economic processes is ever increasing. The SPE group has broad expertise that can make a significant contribution to the development of processes for sustainable energy and chemicals. Additionally, although the TRLs of these processes are sometimes high, fundamental research is required to tackle the bottlenecks or even understand the observed phenomena. By increasing the observability with state-of-the-art measurement techniques and increasing the control of synthesis processes, a better understanding of chemistry and physical processes is gained, which opens up possibilities for more sustainable production. A major developing field is electrochemical reactor engineering. With the change from fossil to renewables in industry and society, the development of efficient electricity-based processes is essential for a competitive industry. The conversion of electrons to chemical bonds is a crucial step. The group is in a unique position to contribute to this with the work on plasma reactors, electrolyzers and bioconversions. The PIs in SPE are therefore closely involved in EIRES: the Eindhoven Institute of Renewable Energy Systems. Viability The areas covered in SPE are very broad, leading to a sustainable number of PhDs, MScs, BScs and PDEngs in the group. With the ramping up of subsidies in the field of sustainability in energy and chemistry, we foresee steady opportunities for funding research, as demonstrated by the very large number of projects granted in the period of 2018-2020. Five key publications from evaluation period A Leaf-Inspired Luminescent Solar Concentrator for Energy-Efficient Continuous-Flow Photochemistry, Dario Cambié, Fang Zhao, Volker Hessel, Michael G. Debije, Timothy Noël, Angewandte Chemie (International Ed.) 56, 2017, pp. 1050-1054. Intensification of the chlor-alkali process by using a spinning disc membrane electrolyzer, Granados Mendoza, P., Moshtari Khah, S., Langenhan, A. S., de Groot, M. T., Keurentjes, J. T. F., Schouten, J. C. & van der Schaaf, J., 2017, Chemical Engineering Research and Design 128, p. 120-129. Facile synthesis of catalytic AuPd nanoparticles within capillary microreactors using polyelectrolyte multilayers for the direct synthesis of H2O2, Kanungo, S., Paunovic, V., Schouten, J. C. & Neira D’Angelo, M. F., 2017, Nano Letters 17, p. 6481-6486. Techno-economic evaluation on a hybrid technology for low hydrogen concentration separation and purification from natural gas grid Nordio, M., Wassie, S.A., Van Sint Annaland, M., ...Viviente Sole, J.L., Gallucci, F. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2021, 46(45), pp. 23417–23435. H2 production via ammonia decomposition in a catalytic membrane reactor Cechetto, V., Di Felice, L., Medrano, J.A., Zuniga, J., Gallucci, F. Fuel Processing Technology, 2021, 216, 106772.