Background and motivation
The development of additive manufacturing (AM) has made it possible to produce complex structures. Compared to conventional manufacturing processes, such structures can be produced within a few hours. These structures improve the efficiency of process engineering apparatus in terms of heat transfer, pressure drop and flow characteristics. One potential application of these apparatuses is methanol synthesis.
The Institute of Micro Process Technology (IMVT) is collaborating with industry partners (Evonik, Siemens Energy and Ineratec) in the BMWI 3D-Process project to explore the advantages of AM in process engineering. Within this framework, IMVT is investigating different reactor geometries to increase the conversion in methanol synthesis.

Topic and tasks
Due to the reaction characteristics, the reactor must allow for isothermal reaction and low pressure drop. In addition, plug flow increases the conversion rate in the reactor. With this knowledge, different reactor designs for methanol synthesis can be compared experimentally without the use of expensive catalysts. For these reasons, the required replacement plants are being built at IMVT. In this work, a decision matrix for the concept selection of a methanol synthesis reactor will be developed and different pre-designed geometries will be compared with respect to heat transfer, pressure drop and flow behavior. To this end, the following tasks will be accomplished:
- Literature review to develop the decision matrices, reaction characteristics of methanol synthesis, design of experiments method.
- Development of an evaluation methodology for the concept selection of a methanol synthesis reactor.
- Parameter study for the comparison of different geometries
- Presentation of the work within an institute seminar
Framework
- Students of process engineering/ mechanical engineering
- Interest in experimental work
- Interest in programming, automation
- Language: English or German
Start: By arrangement
Supervisor: Mertcan Kaya (mertcan.kaya@kit.edu)