OP-II-3

PP-II-17OPTIMISED METHOD TO DEPOSIT CATALITIC MATERIALS ONSTRUCTURED SURFACESGonzález O., Unzurrunzaga A., Pérez S., Belsué M.INASMET-TECNALIA, Energy Unit, Bioenergy Department, Mikeletegi Pasealekua, 2Parque Tecnológico - Teknologi Parkea, E-20009 Donostia - San Sebastián (Spain),orlando.gonzalez@inasmet.esAbstractProcess Intensification (PI), which is defined as “any chemical engineeringdevelopment that leads to a substantially smaller, cleaner, safer and more energyefficient technology”, is likely to be the next revolution of the chemical industry. Theneed for more efficient processes, including further flexible engineering designs and,at the same time, increasing the safety and environmental impact of theseprocesses, is putting pressure on the industry to do novel R&D in this field. The fieldof structured catalysts is included in the PI concept. These devices arecomprised by rigid 3D structures made of metal or ceramic materials, with pores orchannels exhibit a large side surface on which a catalytic material thin layer can bedeposited and through which a fluid can circulate. These systems are suitable forreplacing conventional packed beds of catalysts pellets in multitubolare externallycooled reactors with substantially enhanced heat exchange properties. Additionally,they offer great advantages related to low pressure drop and high flow ratescommonly used in technologies or processes related to environmental (NOx, SOxand VOC´s abatement) and renewable energy issues (hydrocarbon reformingprocesses to produce hydrogen or syngas from several sources, such as: carbon,natural gas, biomass, liquid hydrocarbons, etc.). A catalytic coating method based ona liquid phase has been optimised in this work in order to prepare structuredcatalysts. Our group has developed a know-how on washcoating depositiontechniques of catalyst layer of different composition (e.g. carriers based onmesoporous SiO 2 and Ni-Co catalysts supported on them) onto supports withdifferent geometries (structured packing, monoliths, and SiC and Al 2 O 3 foams).Experimental: Four types of structured devices with cylindrical dimensions (16mm OD x 25 mm L) were used in this study as structured supports: home madeparallel channel metallic monoliths using FeCrAlloy® sheets; KATAPAK®,commercial structured metallic packings; home made Al 2 O 3 foams and ULTRAMET®SiC foams (see Fig.1). Metal structure supports were pretreated by thermal oxidationusing air at 900°C/22h with the aim of generating a very rough surface of α–Al 2 O 3362