Microwave Reactors for Chemical Synthesis and Biofuels Preparation

Microwave reactors are among the most novel thermochemical technologies to treat biomass and improve process sustainability. The microwave-assisted process offers several advantages over the traditional ones in terms of uniform internal heating of heterogeneous low-thermal conductivity loads, ease of control, saving of time and heat energy for properly designed or selected reactors. The geometries and the functioning principles of microwave reactors commonly adopted for chemical synthesis and biofuels are discussed in this chapter. Temperature monitoring , output microwave power control and product enhancement are critical to obtain process efficiency with microwave reactors.