Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 28: Modeling and Simulation of Soft Matter III

CPP 28.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 19, 2025, 15:45–16:00, H34

A lattice Boltzmann study of bijels as a novel type of catalyst support structure — •Johannes Martinus Peter Beunen and Jens Harting — Helmholtz-Institut Erlangen-Nürnberg für Erneuerbare Energien, Cauerstraße 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany

Due to their high surface area to volume ratio porous media are very suitable as catalyst support materials. However, the stochastic morphology of commercially available supports generally results in poor reaction product transport and inefficient use of the therein-contained catalyst material. These issues can be alleviated by making use of catalyst supports acquired from spinodally derived architectures due to their beneficial percolation properties. In particular, architectures obtained from bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels (bijels) seem to provide a viable route to manufacture stable catalyst supports that resolve the aforementioned issues. In this work, this type of porous support is further investigated by means of the three-dimensional lattice Boltzmann method. First, we simulate the formation of bijels by an extension of the lattice Boltzmann method, to allow for multi-component fluids and particles with non-neutral wetting properties. We report on the improved properties of the resulting porous structures compared to stochastic equivalents for usage in chemical reactors. Hereafter, the lattice Boltzmann method is employed again to further validate the enhanced performance of bijel-derived geometries by means of reactive flow simulations. Our findings suggest that bijel-derived catalyst support structures allow for an almost threefold increase in reactor effectiveness.

Keywords: bijel; catalysis; lattice Boltzmann method; reactive flows; porous media