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MRI in chemical engineering applications
Publikationstyp
Conference Presentation
Date Issued
2024-08-13
Sprache
English
Citation
IFIP TC7 System Modeling and Optimization (2024)
Contribution to Conference
While magnetic resonance imaging has become a standard technique in the medical field, it has seen limited application in the field of chemical engineering.
Due to the importance of this field and the lack of understanding of the internal processes in many reactor types, MRI has the potential to provide novel insights.
While the technique has marked advantages in the field of chemical engineering such as the ability to measure opaque systems, velocity and chemical shift, there are challenges such as limited 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.
* 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 limitiations.
* 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.
Due to the importance of this field and the lack of understanding of the internal processes in many reactor types, MRI has the potential to provide novel insights.
While the technique has marked advantages in the field of chemical engineering such as the ability to measure opaque systems, velocity and chemical shift, there are challenges such as limited 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.
* 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 limitiations.
* 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.
Subjects
chemical engineering
chemical shift
MRI
velocimetry
DDC Class
660.2: Chemical Engineering