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| About the group |
The central
unit of most chemical process plants is the chemical
reactor system. Proper design and operation of this unit
has a determining influence on the plant size,
complexity, product distribution, by-products, energy
utilisation, economy and final emissions to the
environment.
Chemical Reaction Engineering (CRE)
and Reactor Technology (RT) has developed as a separate
field of research since the middle of the last century.
Over the years, this field has contributed significantly
to the development of a more diverse, specialised and
environmentally friendly chemical industry, and many
research laboratories and departments specialising in
this field exist (see link
collection).
In recent years an increasing
trend in applying what may be called more fundamental
modelling approaches to elucidate details of the reactor
performance has been seen in the literature and
recognised as very useful by the industry. Advanced
reactor modelling deviates from the more traditional
approaches as the coupling between kinetics,
thermodynamics, mass and heat transfer, and the flow
phenomena is accounted for by solving the fluid momentum
equations directly, instead of resorting to empirical
flow correlations or simplified flow models.
Our
Department was very early in introducing this field both
in teaching and research and our CRE and RT activity is
today as vital as ever.
The Department of
Chemical Engineering, NTNU was very early in introducing
CRE and RT both in teaching and research, and our group
has during the last ten years been active in building up
competence and knowledge on both advanced reactor
models, and particularly on CFD-based models for
multiphase reactors. Since 1990 this has lead to eight
Dr.ing. (PhD) degrees in the field and presently seven
students are in the pipeline.
We are also
recognised as a Marie
Curie Training Site in the field of ECOCHEM
and would like to welcome PhD students from all Europeen
Union countries to research stays of 3-12 months in our
group.(link til mer) At present we are in charge of two
large research programs funded by the Norwegian Research
Council, one directed at improved multiphase reactor
performance (CARPET) and one on
improved gas/liquid phase separation (HipGas). We work
in close collaboration with the SINTEF
Process Technology group.
Design and
simulation of chemical reactors, and separation
equipment with chemical reactions, require knowledge on
reaction engineering, catalysis, fluid mechanics and
heat- and mass transfer processes. Both advanced
experimental research and modelling are necessary to
manage this, and our group covers both fields.
A list of ongoing
PhD research can be found
here. |
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