OPTIMIZATION OF A PHOTOCATALYTIC CHEMICAL REACTOR FOR CARBON DIOXIDE REDUCTION

Abstract

Climate change challenge is mainly driven by anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions that worsen the greenhouse effect, which can be mitigated, in part, by the help of the photocatalytic chemical reactor for CO2 reduction presented in this work. A chemical reduction of the Carbon Dioxide in the presence of Hydrogen gas could create products like Carbon monoxide and water, also referred to as the reverse water gas shift reaction (RWGS), which can possibly be re-used for industrial needs. This work presents how using an innovative chemical reactor that helps emit light onto a novel photocatalyst, can create both high Carbon Dioxide reduction percentile and overall products flow with reduced energy requirements; It will demonstrate the optimization process, through numerical simulations, using the COMSOL Multiphysics program, and related lab experiments with a 0.1 L lab scale reactor, for the RWGS reaction. The work described in this paper takes into account that the technology used needs to show both theoretical and practical feasibility in order to scale up easily to industrial size.