ABSTRACT
Electrochemical reactions find applications in chlor alkali industries, metallurgical and metal-processing industries, wastewater treatment, specialty chemicals, energy storage, etc. This chapter provides a brief overview of the fundamentals of electrochemical reactions and the reactors for such applications. Electrochemical reactions take place at the interface of an electrically charged solid—the electrode—and a liquid—the electrolyte. An electrochemical reactor consists of two sets of electrodes—a cathode and an anode. For operational reasons, in most of the practical electrochemical reactors, the current is kept constant and the cell voltage is controlled through a suitable power-conditioning device. In industrial application of biochemical reactions, the metabolic processes of microorganisms are channelized to useful ends. The reactors used for these purposes are biochemical reactors. Fluidized bed reactors find their largest applications in gas–solid catalytic reactions. The gas distributor spreads the gas evenly across the reactor cross section allowing uniform fluidization.
