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Electrothermal synthesis of commodity chemicals

Nature Chemical Engineering volume 1, pages 680–690 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electrothermal synthesis of commodity chemicals has received notable interest in recent decades as renewable electricity becomes more available and environmental challenges are increasingly recognized. Representative electrothermal approaches, such as Joule heating, microwaves, induction heating and plasma, have rapidly evolved from operating in millimeter-sized micro-reactors toward modular and even industrial-scale systems. Meanwhile, new chemical engineering concepts, such as dynamic and programmable operation for non-equilibrium chemical reactions using nanosecond- to millisecond-long energy pulsing, spatial and temporal heating by electrifying various reactor components (for example, the reactor walls, catalyst bed or reactant in porous media), and field-enhanced reactions and catalysis, have been discovered to improve synthesis outcomes. Despite the rapid progress of this field, there remain many knowledge gaps and technical hurdles. Here we review the critical engineering advances, analyze the unaddressed challenges and discuss the potential directions for the electrothermal synthesis of commodity chemicals toward its broader implementation for future chemical manufacturing.

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Fig. 1: Electrothermal chemical syntheses using resistive heating (Joule heating), induction heating, microwaves and plasma.
Fig. 2: Model resistive heater designs.
Fig. 3: Scale-up strategies and system design considerations for resistively heated reactors.
Fig. 4: Non-resistive heating for electrothermal chemical synthesis.
Fig. 5: Potential future directions for electrothermal chemical synthesis.

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Acknowledgements

L.H. acknowledges the financial support from the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under award no. DE-SC0023357 and the US Department of Energy, Office of Science Energy Earthshot Initiative as part of the Non-equilibrium Energy Transfer for Efficient Reactions (NEETER) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Q.D. acknowledges the assistance and support from Purdue library for the preparation and submission of the paper. S.H. acknowledges the financial support provided by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy through grant no. DE-SC0021953 and Yale Planetary Solutions seed grant program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Qi Dong

  2. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Shu Hu

  3. Energy Science Institute, Yale West Campus, West Haven, CT, USA

    Shu Hu

  4. Center for Materials Innovation, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Shu Hu & Liangbing Hu

  5. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Liangbing Hu

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  1. Qi Dong
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  2. Shu Hu
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Q.D., L.H. and S.H. contributed to the discussions and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Qi Dong, Shu Hu or Liangbing Hu.

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Dong, Q., Hu, S. & Hu, L. Electrothermal synthesis of commodity chemicals. Nat Chem Eng 1, 680–690 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-024-00134-1

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