Speaker
Description
In the field of chemical engineering, reactors play a vital role in processing and producing many goods However, their understanding is often limited by measurement access. Tomographic techniques can overcome these limits, with MRI being especially suitable. MRI can measure velocity and chemical composition in opaque systems and has been applied in the medical field extensively. While these capabilities are very promising, MRI faces challenges limiting its application such as sample size, low temporal resolution, and technique-specific properties.
At the Institute of Process Imaging at Hamburg University of Technology, our goal is to overcome these challenges. This talk tackles three challenges with MRI in chemical engineering.
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Size: Chemical reactors often rely on gravity. Therefore, a vertical system is best suited for measurement. However, most vertical systems only provide less than 7 cm of usable diameter. On the other hand, clinical scanners with higher diameters are oriented horizontally, limiting their capabilities. The TUHH vertical MRI scanner is a unique system designed to image pilot-scale reactors overcoming these limitations.
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Low temporal resolution: The temporal resolution of MRI has always been a challenge and only recently has improved significantly. Similar to the clinical field, parallel imaging and dedicated reconstruction enable temporal resolutions in the millisecond range.
These make it possible to investigate dynamic systems. Especially challenging is the measurement of chemical compositions. Progress has been made to improve on these time-consuming measurements. -
Technique specific properties: MRI can deliver three-dimensional velocity fields. However, comparing these measurements to computational fluids simulations (CFD) often results in discrepancies. These can be the result of an unfair comparison, since MRI and CFD display different states of the system. Using a MR-Simulator (JEMRIS) and CFD-DEM simulations, the extent of these differences as well as the fairest way to compare can be obtained.
