On the application of swirl to increase mixing in chemical reactors

Chemical reactors often work in a laminar flow regime which is known to be not very favourable for mixing. Nevertheless, increasing the mixing would make the reactors more efficient. Therefore, this project aims to investigate the possibility to apply swirl to the reactor flow for increasing the mixing. Swirl has already proven to work in combustion systems and gas turbines and the aim of this project is to apply it to chemical reactors in general. As a test case, the Reductive Catalytic Fractionation (RCF) process will be optimised by the design of a continues reactor. RCF creates high value chemicals with improved functionality by converting non-edible lignocellulosic biomass at a high carbon efficiency. With the results of this project, the process can be further optimised, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.