A perspective on power-to-heat in catalytic processes for decarbonization

The rising environmental problems and demanding actions aimed at mitigation of climate change are calling for a radical transformation of different industrial sectors. In this perspective, chemical process industry is called to play a major role towards this transition, on one hand by transforming its existing carbon-intensive processes and, on the other hand, providing clean alternatives for hard-to-decarbonize applications. Among the possible options for the transformation of catalytic processes, power-to-heat is considered in view of large available quantities of green electricity. This approach is considered industrially-mature and can be applied at a large scale for a wide number of existing processes, providing substantial advantages in terms of intensification. The aim of this work is to provide a detailed analysis of the status quo of these technologies and critically discuss them towards their possible use for a generic process of interest by the identification of several key indicators. The main technologies proposed i.e microwave heating, joule heating, induction heating and roto-dynamic reactor are reviewed alongside with some of the applications already reported in open-literature. Afterwards, a critical analysis about material needs, energy efficiency of the proposed methodologies, the possibilities of scale-up and retrofitting and the impact on the overall process design and performances are reported.