AIChE
JOURNAL Highlight
Chemical Reaction Engineering Rises to the Challenge
C hemical reaction engineering (CRE) plays an essen-
tial role in addressing the challenges of meeting the
world’s demands for energy, food, water, and medicine
in a sustainable way while protecting the environment.
This was the theme of the 24th International Symposium
for Chemical Reaction Engineering, which took place in
Minneapolis, MN, June 12–15, 2016. It is also the theme
of this month’s special issue of the AIChE Journal, which
contains selected contributions that represent state-of-the-
art developments in CRE.
The CRE discipline quantifies the interactions of trans-
port phenomena and kinetics to relate reactor performance
to operating conditions and feed variables. Quantifying
these interactions requires a thorough understanding of the
nanoscale (molecular level), micro- to meso-scale (trans-
port and kinetic events at a particle level), and macroscale
(reactor design). CRE develops general principles useful
in approaching a variety of systems where engineering of
reactions is needed.
The January AIChE Journal contains articles covering a
variety of topics, including: particle technology and fluidi-
zation; process systems engineering; reaction engineering,
kinetics, and catalysis; and transport phenomena and fluid
mechanics. A few of the papers are highlighted here.
Particle technology and fluidization. Xiaowen Liu, et al.,
provide results of a three-dimensional large-scale direct
numerical simulation of particles in heterogeneous gas-solid
flow in their paper, “Meso-Scale Statistical Properties of
Gas-Solid Flow — A Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS)
Study.” Gas-solid flow systems are relevant because they
are encountered in many chemical and industrial processes,
such as fluid catalytic cracking, coal gasification, biomass
pyrolysis, and fossil fuel combustion. Understanding the
hydrodynamic characteristics of gas-solid flow is crucial to
the design and scaleup of such processes, but this remains a
challenge, Liu, et al., say, due to the existence of multiscale
heterogeneous structures in both space and time.
Process systems engineering. Marcus Wenzel, et al.,
discuss their investigation of process systems for syngas
production from CO2 and renewable energy by the reverse
water-gas shift (RWGS) and the reverse water-gas shift
chemical looping (RWGS-CL) process in their article,
“Thermodynamic Analysis and Optimization of RWGS
Processes for Solar Syngas Production from CO2.” To
move away from dependency on fossil fuels, an alterna-
tive carbon source (e.g., CO2) and efficient and sustainable
methods for the production of bulk chemicals are needed,
Copyright © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
Wenzel, et al., write. One solution is the production of
syngas — a precursor to a wide range of products — from
CO2 and renewable energy sources via the RWGS reac-
tion. Wenzel, et al., have designed process systems for the
conventional RWGS and the RWGS-CL process for syngas
production from CO2 and renewable energy.
Reaction engineering, kinetics, and catalysis. Amey
More and Götz Veser discuss their evaluation of the use of
a simple physical mixture as an alternative to alloy carriers
in chemical looping processes in their article, “Physical
Mixtures as Simple and Efficient Alternative to Alloy Car-
riers in Chemical Looping Processes.” Over the past few
decades, chemical looping combustion has emerged as a
promising technology for the combustion of natural gas
with inherent carbon capture. More recently, the chemical
looping scheme has been used successfully to transform
fuels into value-added chemicals. A major challenge for
large-scale application of chemical looping methods is the
development of oxygen carriers that are cheap, reactive,
and chemically and thermally stable over extended cyclic
operation at harsh conditions. In their paper, More and
Veser systematically compare the reactive performance of
two oxygen carriers — physical mixtures and alloys — for
upgrading pure methane.
Transport phenomena and fluid mechanics. “Micro­fluidic
devices for the purpose of mixing, i.e., micromixers, have
been widely explored in the literature over the past decade,”
Shahab Boroun and Faïçal Larachi write in their article,
“Enhancing Liquid Micromixing Using Low-Frequency
Rotating Nanoparticles.” They continue: “Almost every
application in the realm of microfluidics, such as micro­
analysis, detection, chemical synthesis, emulsification, and
gas absorption, takes advantage of mixing at the microscale.”
Boroun and Larachi hypothesize that the observed stimu-
lated transport properties of magnetic nanofluids in rotating
magnetic fields could enhance mixing and micromixing in
microfluidic configurations. They present the first measure-
ments on the mixing index and micromixing times for two
miscible streams that are stimulated by seeding with mag-
netic nanoparticles and then mixed under static, oscillating,
and rotating magnetic fields.
“We commend these authors for their excellent work
and hope that the international CRE community will find
this issue valuable,” Mike Harold, Editor of the AIChE
Journal, Dan Hickman, Fellow at Dow Chemical Co., and
Aditya Bhan and Paul Dauenhauer, both associate profes-
sors at the Univ. of Minnesota, write in the preface. CEP
CEP  January 2017  www.aiche.org/cep  13