Chemical Processes and Material Modelling Area - CPM

The Chemical Processes and Materials Modeling (CPM) Area led by Prof. Giacomo Cao has a staff of 3 people that includes experienced researchers in Chemical and Environmental Processes, Physico-Chemical Processes, Material Modeling. CPM Area aim is to study industrial and research problems in the field of Material and Chemical and Environmental Processes, and to design and apply models and software to solve them. The philosophy adopted is a that of ``problem solving'' in which the Area resources attacking the problem produce solutions which can be software packages, design or optimization procedures, technical suggestions and/or support. The CPM Area has been and is involved in work under contract with several major Italian industries and corporate research centers and has participated to European Community sponsored programs. Contacts and collaborations are maintained with Universities, Research Centers and industries.

CORE COMPETENCES:

• New technologies for the remediation of contamined sites;
• Modeling of SHS/FACS/SPS processes;
• Modeling of mechanochemical reactors;
• Simulation of kinetics of p-xylene oxidation to terephthalic acid;
• Modeling of engineered cartilage tissue in bioreactors;
• Kinetics of Fuel Combustion:

Detailed chemical kinetics mechanism for gaseous fuels combustion and liquid kerosene are studied by means of sensitivity analysis. These studies can predict, for instance, the ignition delay time (i.d.t.) for various fuels and the influence of additives in fuel mixtures. The effects of additives on ignition delay time is investigated because by shortening the i.d.t in gas turbines it is possible to improve stability and flame anchoring and to reduce the combustor length thus improving combustion efficiency and decreasing environmental pollution;

• Modeling of Fast and Mixing Sensitive Reactions:

In industrial practice processes involving mixing of different phases are extremely important since the way and the intensity of mixing can affect yield, selectivity and product quality. Mixing processes, due to their wide applications, can be often found in chemical plants as for example in the preparation of plastics, rubber, pharmaceutical, food industry, etc. Since chemical reactions take place at molecular scale and only mixing at this scale can directly affect the course of reaction, modeling mixing phenomena gives an useful tool in the design, the management and the control of the process. Modeling approach can follow different ways: a CFD approach (Eulerian) where attention is focussed in the flow field inside the reactor, or a lumped approach (Lagrangian) where attention is focussed in the detailed description of vortexes (reacting zone) time evolution. Choosing between these two approaches need to consider several aspects as system geometry, reaction scheme, CPU time availability, etc. Micromixing simulations have been already carried out at CRS4 obtaining interesting results and good agreement with experimental evidence;

References

Journal Articles, Conference Papers, and Book Contributions

Technical Reports