Gas-Liquid Flow Solid-Catalyzed Reactions in Magnetic-Field Emulated Microgravity

The catalytic hydrogenation of α-methylstyrene and phenylacetylene were used to study the conversion and selectivity behaviors of wetting-sensitive solid-catalyzed gas-liquid flowing systems in artificial gravity generated in strong inhomogeneous static magnetic fields. Such microgravity environment maintained in a 9 T magnet for hours down to 10 -4 g for co-currently flowing diamagnetic gas/diamagnetic liquid systems was realized by matching the gas and liquid mass magnetic susceptibilities. Conversion of α-methylstyrene and selectivity of styrene were measured with and without magnetic fields at constant wetting efficiency and contact time. It was shown that magnetic fields affect conversion and selectivity of catalytic reactions exclusively via hydrodynamic phenomena. Hence, this method could prove useful to generate artificial microgravity in Earth-bound facilities to emulate passive/reactive catalytic multiphase flows in lunar/Martian gravity or in other microgravity conditions.