A Novel Combined Design of Vessel and Resonant Cavity for Microwave Multi-Frequency Heating Chemical Reactor Using Antennas as Applicators

Abstract

In this work a new design concept in the field of microwave heating assisted chemical reactors is proposed focusing on two main innovations. The first one consists in combining the resonant cavity and the vessel in the same volume, improving the durability of the system by using a metallic material for the vessel. The second consists of integrating antennas as applicator ports for energy transmission from the magnetron into the cavity, instead of waveguides, allowing greater design flexibility in terms of cavity and system dimensions. In this work, a microwave reactor with four electromagnetic energy emitting antennas is optimized. This innovation is evaluated by means of a simulation model that solves the finite element method (FEM) using the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics coupling radio frequency and heat transfer physics. Within this work, simulations have demonstrated the microwave heating process in the configured chemical reactor where the implementation of standard waveguides would not be possible due to the incompatible size required in the selected diameter dimension for 106 litres. Therefore, the results achieved lay the foundation for the construction of a microwave reactor intended to drive the industrial process of chemical recycling of polymers on a large industrial scale.