Review after the first year of reaCtor project – we are on a good track!
OUR MOTIVATION
The chemical industry is a major contributor to CO2 emissions as it accounts for about 30% of industrys' total energy use worldwide. Thus, disruptive technologies are needed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Photochemistry in flow microreactors promises to sustainably produce chemical compounds and has received a lot of attention due to the prospect of utilizing (sun)light to drive these reactions. Still, the technique has not been widely used due to a challenging light management which hinders large-scale application in industry. This is exactly where reaCtor comes into play by offering an innovative solution: microreactors will be integrated inside a specialty optical glass fiber, where laser light is coupled in and the chemical reaction is en hancedby plasmonic nanoparticles, which locally amplify the optical field of the incoupled light. This approach allows to use a single light source for multiplereactors, thereby enabling a huge scale-up potential towards a sustainable chemical industry. Our goal is to set-up a demonstrator and benchmark it with photocatalytic reactions.
This project has received funding from the European Innovation Council programme under grant agreement No 101099405.
(a) Conventional flow reactor with non-scalable light management and (b) upscaling vision of proposed fibre-based plasmonic micro-reactor through controllable light managment by fibre-guided laser light, plasmonic nanoparticles and engineered micro-fluidic channels (dimensions not to scale).
Fibre based plasmonic microreactor for flow chemistry
News
SCIENTISTS
Michael Steinke
Head of Laser Components
and Fibres Group
Leibniz University Hannover, GE
Michael.steinke@hitec.uni-hannover.de
Paul Eduardo David Soto Rodríguez
Senior Researcher
Viera y Clavijo Tenure-Track Professor
Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife
Simon Spelthann
Postdoc
Leibniz University Hannover, GE
spelthann@iqo.uni-hannover.de
Airán Ródenas Seguí
Ramón y Cajal Fellow Tenure-Track
Professor
Group leader LeapLab Group
Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife
CONTACT
PROJECT MANAGER
Project Manager / Coordinator
Michael Steinke
Head of Laser Components and FibresInstitute of Quantum Optics / Hannover Institute of Technology
answers your questions:
Callinstraße 34a
30167 Hannover, Germany
+49 511 762 14816
Public Relations Manager
Susann Spindler
Project and Network Manager
EurA AG
answers your questions:
Max-Eyth-Straße 2
73479 Ellwangen, Germany