Nano/micro/meso/multifunctional intensification strategies for greener multiphase reactors/materials

《自然》2017年的一项研究(Ballagh等人)(2017)《自然》548，S6)绘制了高质量研究与发明的相关性及其对工业的影响。在未来工业的核心，关于未来研究前景的地平线之旅将重点关注可持续发展的能源地平线和矿产供应，以及让二氧化碳发挥作用以遏制全球变暖。拟议的探索基金研究计划坚持这三种模式，为反应堆/材料设计了纳米/微/介观/多功能(N3m)强化战略，重点关注化石能源的升级/转化和新型纳米流体/绿色溶剂(矿物)的混合/分离/反应。这些系统的一个共同主线是它们的多尺度/多阶段性质，由此尺度的诅咒挑战了我们的理解，并最终挑战了可靠技术的设计。正如我们过去认识到的那样，我们的长期目标是发展变革性的n3m战略，以刺激瓶颈规模(S)。未来五年，这些战略将以三个短期目标的形式减少：1)纳米/微型多功能强化；2)海洋应用的微/中尺度强化；3)矿物分离的微/中尺度强化。

A 2017 study from Nature (Ballagh et al. (2017) Nature 548, S6) charted the correlation of high-quality research with inventions and their influence on industry. At the heart of tomorrow's industry, a tour d'horizon on future research perspectives pinpoints the energy horizon and the mineral supply for sustainable development in conjunction with putting carbon dioxide at work to curb global warming. The proposed Discovery Grant research program adheres to this triptych by devising nano/micro/meso/multifunctional (n3m) intensification strategies for reactors/materials with focus on upgrade/conversion of fossil energy and novel nanofluid/green solvent (mineral) mixing/separation/reaction. A common thread to these systems is their multiscale/multiphase nature whereby the curse of scales challenges our understanding and ultimately the design of reliable technologies. As exemplified from our past realizations, our long term objective is to develop transformative n3m strategies to stimulate the bottlenecking scale(s). Over the next five years, these strategies will be declined in the form of three short-term objectives 1) Nano/microscale multifunctional intensification; 2) Micro/mesoscale intensification for marine applications, 3) Micro/mesoscale intensification for mineral separation.