Advancing Green Reactor Engineering by Fundamental Characterization of Multiphase Flows

理论上具有很高的原子和能量效率的许多绿色化学物质，由于对流体动力学、传输和动力学之间的相互作用缺乏足够的定量了解而未能扩大规模，因此不会产生绿色过程。当试图在旧的反应堆类型中适应新的化学成分时，放大和设计通常基于经验主义。这在最好的情况下会导致效率和性能不佳，在最坏的情况下会导致失败。为了降低扩大规模的风险，并充分发挥新技术的潜力，需要采取一种系统性的办法，能够在科学而不是经验主义的基础上扩大规模和设计程序。为多相(气液反应器)开发这种方法，并将其应用于生物反应器和二氧化碳膨胀液体反应器，这两个反应器都用于绿色工艺，是本项目的主题。作为实施绿色工程的先决条件，多相反应器的合理设计将得到加强：1)多相反应器测量技术的最新发展将提供目前难以量化的系统中流动、混合和相相互作用的定量描述；2)这些新开发的技术将被用于定量描述在绿色过程中起作用的两个多相反应器--生物反应器和二氧化碳膨胀液体(CXL)反应器中的流体动力学。更广泛的影响将通过将拟议的研究与教育相结合的各种手段，记录和传播已开发的测量技术及其在为扩大绿色进程提供基础方面的使用所获得的知识。这一重要问题的多尺度特征、其重要性以及为扩大规模和设计建立工程方法所需的系统方法，为指导年轻的博士后研究人员发展将这种复杂的多尺度信息整合到以科学为基础的现代工程设计的专门知识提供了极好的机会。该项目的好处将远远超出已开发的测量技术和绿色设计的多相反应堆。开发的方法将适用于许多其他多相过程，并将产生关于高温和压力下不透明多相流的新知识。本科生和研究生将接受能源和环境可持续发展等新兴领域的培训。此外，通过华盛顿大学最近发起的MAGEEP(麦克唐奈全球能源和环境伙伴关系学院和VIA I-CARE(国际先进可再生能源和可持续发展中心)，(http：//mcdonnell.wustl.edu))，将有国际受众传播这些成果，并教授作为该项目一部分开发的以科学为基础的新的放大工程学方法。作为“能源与环境”计划的一部分，华盛顿大学开始提供高级能源技术的硕士和博士学位。这项研究的结果将纳入现有的反应工程课程和目前正在开发的新的环境可持续性课程。这项研究的结果将通过在会议、期刊出版物上的陈述以及通过适当的网站和网络广泛传播。将尽一切努力招募女性和/或处境不利的少数族裔学生参加该项目。此外，还将向当地高中生，特别是女性和/或弱势少数族裔学生进行外联，将他们带到校园，通过演讲、讨论和实验室演示，让学生接触到实验室环境和绿色工程原则和实践。

0933780DudukovicIntellectual MeritMany green chemistries, with theoretically high atom and energy efficiencies, do not result in green processes due to failure in scale-up because of inadequate quantitative understanding of the interactions between fluid dynamics, transport and kinetics. Scale-up and design are often based on empiricism when attempting to accommodate new chemistries in old reactor types. This leads at best to suboptimal efficiencies and performance and at worst to failure. A systematic approach that can generate scale-up and design procedures based on science rather than empiricism is needed to reduce the risk of scale-up and enable the realization of new technologies to full potential. The development of such methodology for multiphase (gas-liquid reactors) and its application to a bioreactor and carbon dioxide expanded liquid reactor, both employed for green processes, is the subject of this project. The rational design of multiphase reactors, which is a prerequisite for implementation of green engineering, will be enhanced as follows: 1) the state of the art of measurement techniques in multiphase reactors will be advanced to provide quantitative descriptions of the flow, mixing and phase interactions in systems that are currently difficult to quantify, and 2) these newly developed techniques will then be used to quantitatively describe the fluid dynamics in two multiphase reactors - a bioreactor and a carbon-dioxide expanded liquid (CXL) reactor, which play a role in green processes. Broader ImpactThe acquired knowledge of the developed measurement techniques and their use in providing the foundation for scale-up of green processes will be documented and disseminated through a variety of means that integrate the proposed research with education. The multi-scale character of this important problem, its significance, and the systems approach needed to establish the engineering methodology for scale-up and design, provides an excellent opportunity for mentoring of a young post-doctoral researcher in developing the expertise of integrating this complex multi-scale information into modern engineering design based on science. The benefits of this project will reach far beyond the developed measurement techniques, and green-engineered multiphase reactors. The developed methodology will be applicable to many other multiphase processes and will generate new knowledge of opaque multiphase flows at elevated temperatures and pressures. Undergraduate and graduate students will be trained in the emerging fields of energy and environmental sustainability. In addition, via the MAGEEP (McDonnell Academy for Global Energy and Environment Partnership and via I-CARES (International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability), (http:/mcdonnell.wustl.edu) launched recently by Washington University, there will be an international audience for dissemination of these results and for teaching a new science-based engineering scale-up methodology developed as part of this project. As part of a major initiative in "Energy and Environment", Washington University is starting to offer M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Advanced Energy Technologies. The results of this research will be integrated in the existing reaction engineering courses and the new environmental sustainability courses currently being developed. The results of this research will be widely disseminated by presentations at conferences, journal publications and through appropriate websites and networks. All attempts will be made to recruit female and/or disadvantaged minority students to the project. Also, outreach to the local high school students, especially female and/or disadvantaged minority students, will be made to bring them to campus and expose students to the lab setting and green engineering principles and practice via presentations, discussions and lab demonstrations.