Design and simulation of a RF resonant reactor for biochemical reactions

Abstract

In this work the development of a multi-tube reactor for chemical processing, running in a microwave irradiated field, is presented. Considering the need of operating with well-known and reproducible experimental conditions, the aim was to design a resonant cavity inside which the tubes with the fluid to be processed are positioned. The irradiated fluid is exposed to constant microwave power since the system works in resonance conditions, therefore the field intensity and power absorption can be accurately calculated and mapped. The cavity was designed by the authors using proper commercial software for 3D electromagnetic simulation, and then the reactor operation was tested by another commercial multiphysics simulation software. The results here presented show the proper geometrical characteristics of the cavity and of the internal tubes to work at 2.45 GHz of frequency while the irradiation power can be varied depending on the needs of the process. The reactor can work with different homogeneous systems, both chemical and biological (enzyme reactions). The future development will be the construction and the real operation of the designed apparatus in order to confirm the simulation results.