Overview of Reactor Design and Engineering
Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) brings deep engineering expertise to the design, fabrication, and deployment of custom reactors for advanced chemical synthesis and materials production. Our capabilities encompass the complete lifecycle of reactor development, including the engineering and construction of specialized hardware tailored for complex chemical reactions and separation processes. We possess significant experience designing systems that safely manage hazardous reagents and aggressive chemical environments, delivering robust, purpose-built solutions that ensure reliability and safety for clients at all stages of process maturation.
Case Studies:
Atmospheric Water Extraction
Water is a critical resource for survival. Many remote locations have limited or polluted water supplies. Existing methods of water purification, such as desalination, require large pieces of equipment and are energy intensive. Further, water is cumbersome to transport, presenting a logistical and economic challenge for supplying water to distant areas. The PSI team aims to overcome these challenges by creating a new class of water capturing materials incorporated into an ultra-lightweight and portable water harvesting system.
The centerpiece of the team’s technology is a novel Smart Moisture Absorbing Foam, or a SMAF. The SMAF will capture atmospheric water across a wide variety of environments, and over a range of temperatures and relative humidity. The SMAF also has very high water storage capacity, enabling daily operational cycles and minimizing frequency of user interaction. The key property of the SMAF is that water is released by compression. The material is ‘smart’ because it switches from hydrophilic (‘water loving’) to hydrophobic (‘water rejecting’) as it is compressed – thereby expelling any trapped water.
Typical state of the art water capture materials release water by energy-intensive heating. Releasing water by compression greatly reduces the amount of energy required to power the system, enabling ultimate portability.
PSI’s AWE Prototype Device and Example Use Cases
Continuous Metal-Organic Framework Production
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of advanced materials that consist of inorganic and organic components. MOFs often exhibit high internal surface areas, resulting in considerable interest for applications in catalysis, gas storage, and molecular separations. PSI has developed novel continuous processes to rapidly synthesize selected MOFs of interest for nuclear waste capture and separations.
