Nina Patel | Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems

Nina Patel
Theme:Low Carbon Fuels
Project:Sun + CO2: a match to drive a more sustainable future
Supervisor: Antonio Exposito ,John Chew

Bio

Nina studied at Leeds university for an integrated masters with a year in industry in chemistry. During her four fantastic years of study, she enjoyed it and learnt a lot, however her main interests were in; the characterisation of inorganic compounds; chemistry of combustion and atmospheric chemistry. She also enjoys cycling and she has recently converted her conventional road bike into a full electric bike.

During her placement year she worked as a laboratory technician at an oil refinery in north east Lincolnshire. Although the oil refinery bragged about its carbon capture programme, it was a polluted environment with lots of greenhouse gas emissions released constantly. Billowing smoke and blazing flares was an eye opener to how anthropogenic activities like the oil refinery are destroying our world.

Her final year at Leeds saw her working on her masters project in crystallisation chemistry. More specifically the characterisation of the crystal growth of calcium sulfate using x-ray diffraction. It was a hands on project with the modification of flow reactors so that the characterisation was as clear as possible. She immersed herself in the research and found that her learning excelled in this way. In addition, her research group of like-minded scientists made it enjoyable for her and she felt part of a community. Doing a PhD excited her and she felt inspired by her masters project.

When discovering AAPS Nina was surprised at how it mixes combines the work of different disciplines into ways of providing cleaner transport systems. To see that she could mix her passion for cars and bikes with chemistry into a PhD was a dream come true.

FunFacts

I have an identical twin.
I once cycled 75 miles off the bat, because I felt like it.
I have a motorbike license.

Sun + CO2: a match to drive a more sustainable future

Nina's PhD project will focus on designing, testing, and fabrication of microreactors specifically for photocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction (PCR) reactions. PCR is a chemical process that uses light energy and a catalyst to convert CO2 into fuels or chemicals. These products can include methanol, propane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can all be used as fuels in different applications. A microreactor, also known as a micro-structure or microchannel reactor, is a device in which chemical reactions occur within a confined space with lateral dimensions typically smaller than 1 mm. Using microreactors for this PCR reaction can provide a higher efficiency of the reaction, by enhancing the movement of molecules to the catalyst to start a reaction more quickly. In turn, this can allow the production of the products more efficiently, hence providing a sustainable route for producing fuels.

Most efforts to enhance PCR have focused on improving reaction chemistry, such as catalyst development. However, reactor engineering and process intensification represent parallel research avenues that could also advance the technology. Only a few research groups have explored the use of microreactors for PCR, with reports indicating that the improved mass transfer in these systems enhances selectivity toward liquid hydrocarbons.

The design of microreactors plays a crucial role in influencing the outcome of reactions. Factors such as channel design, geometry, and the surface area-to-volume ratio can be adjusted to steer a reaction in a desired direction. The different microreactors designs will be created using computer-aided software, and designs will be transformed into the physical model using computer numerical control (CNC) machining. However before the manufacturing of the physical models, computational fluid dynamics will be used to test these designs.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses computers to simulate and analyse fluid flow. By employing CFD, the flow and mixing of reactants through the different microreactor designs can be modelled, allowing for an assessment of how the reactants behave and the calculation of various key parameters. The key parameters can provide an indication on how well the reaction is occurring, such as the rate of reaction, mixing index, and yield. Using an iterative design approach, different designs can be tested in the simulation software and adjusted to optimise the reactions parameters. It is only until the designs with the most efficient mixing and diffusion properties for PCR that they will be manufactured. This saves time, consumables, and money, by eliminating the need to manufacture and testing of each design.

Although microreactors have shown promise, the reactor's role in the process is not yet fully understood. Further investigation and optimisation of microreactor designs could lead to better process control and performance. This PhD project aims to develop this understanding and output a microreactor for the PCR reaction, which has a high efficiency and a great yield which is substantially larger than yields seen in the literature.