(97b) Environmental Reaction Engineering: Under Pressure and in Hot Water

Organic chemical reactions in hot, compressed water can be used to advantage for waste treatment, green chemistry, waste valorization, production of renewable fuels, and elimination of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Water near its critical point has properties similar to a moderately polar organic solvent and it has an elevated concentration of hydronium ions, which can facilitate acid-catalyzed reactions. This presentation provides an overview of kinetics, catalysis, and reaction engineering research advances related to oxidation in supercritical water for
destruction of organic waste, chemical synthesis in high-temperature water, hydrothermal treatment and valorization of waste biomass and plastics, and production of renewable bio-oil from hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass. The advances include insights from well-designed experiments, fundamental mechanistic insights obtained via molecular simulation, computational chemistry, and detailed chemical kinetics models, and engineering insights from phenomenological models of global reaction networks.