Energy Efficiency, Materials and Resources (EMR): Energy-Efficient Processes -Multiphases and thermal processes-

Besides the activities on development of technologies and systems for the plasma heating in the FUSION Program, IHM is also in charge of research and development in the topic Energy Efficient Processes, part of the EMR Program.
An important part of this research is the dielectric characterization of the processed materials in the parameter range relevant to processes under development. Therefore existing test-sets are continuously improved and new test-sets are developed following the new requirements regarding materials compositions or process parameter range. Meanwhile a very versatile test lab for dielectric characterization exists. This allows temperature dependent dielectric measurements in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 30 GHz for low as well as high loss materials and from room temperature up to 1000°C for solids, liquids and at pressures up to 20 bar.
All this expertise and the existing industrial scale high power microwave infrastructure faces growing interest from industry and research. As a consequence the research group is involved in several national and international joint research projects with objectives in various fields of applications. ... mehrThe H2020 project SYMBIOBTIMA requests the design of an industrial prototype reactor for the microwave assisted depolymerization of PET plastic waste for the purpose of energy efficient recycling. In the frame of the H2020 Marie Curie international training network TOMOCON that started end of 2017 a microwave tomographic sensor will be developed. Within the German-Korean project REINFORCE the potential of microwave dielectric heating as well as microwave sustained plasma heating will be investigated with respect to energy efficient carbon fiber production.
Solid state microwave amplifiers getting more and more competitive compared to magnetron sources with respect to power and costs. Furthermore such amplifiers allow precise control not only of power level but also of frequency and phase and promise significant longer lifetime than magnetrons. Those features might be door openers for novel application that could not be satisfied with magnetron sources. Therefore national funded collaboration projects have been started with HBH microwave GmbH recently to develop affordable high power solid state generators that meet the requirements for novel process control concepts. Furthermore those novel microwave sources might be useful for microwave sustained plasma generators for plasma activation of CO2 in the frame of research activities like Power to X. Therefore recently a novel lab for plasma chemistry using atmospheric microwave plasma has been established. The status of major projects is briefly introduced in the following chapters.