Currently, industrial processes in the U.S. account for approximately a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions – even more than the annual emissions from passenger vehicles, trucks, and airplanes combined. Decarbonizing this sector is a challenging but vital step in mitigating impacts on our future climate.
Currently, industrial processes in the U.S. account for approximately a third of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions – even more than the annual emissions from passenger vehicles, trucks, and airplanes combined. Decarbonizing this sector is a challenging but vital step in mitigating impacts on our future climate.
Researchers at Stanford Engineering have designed and demonstrated a new type of thermochemical reactor that is capable of generating the immense amounts of heat required for many industrial processes using electricity instead of burning fossil fuels. The design, published Aug. 19 in Joule, is also smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than existing fossil fuel technology.
“We have an electrified and scalable reactor infrastructure for thermochemical processes that features ideal heating and heat-transfer properties,” said Jonathan Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford and senior author on the paper. “Essentially, we’re pushing reactor performance to its physical limits, and we’re using green electricity to power it.”
Read more at: Stanford University
This image depicts the inductively heated metamaterial reactor with catalysts filling the ceramic foam baffle. It is producing carbon monoxide and water from the reverse water gas shift reaction. (Photo Credit: Dolly Mantle)
