关键词: 介尺度科学, 虚拟过程工程, 多尺度, 介尺度, 多相反应器, 大数据, 云计算

Abstract: Traditional R&D modes in chemical and process engineering, featuring longer period and higher risks and cost, have become a bottleneck for the fast development of chemical and process industries. Breaking the bottleneck should be based on the mesoscience and virtual process engineering (VPE). Firstly, the scientific challenge roots in the multiscale and multilevel structures in which the mesoscales, as the key, are far from being well understood. Understanding the mesoscale complexity plays an important role in the study of structure-function relationships of materials, mixing and transfer in reactors as well as the system integration. Only by coupling the flow, mass and heat transfer as well as reactions on the mesoscales, could the multiscale structure in multiphase reactors be accurately predicted. On the other hand, the mesoscience-based VPE may become a new R&D mode in the near future, greatly shortening the time period and generating high-value and fine products. VPE bridges the gap between the mesoscience and the R&D of new technology and processes, assembling various tools, packages, knowledge database, each of which is of a certain function, and hence materializing the mesoscience and its application in R&D and upgrading the R&D capability. Traditional theories and supercomputing is inadequate to sustain the VPE. The mesoscience, however, offers an unprecedented opportunity for VPE. Involving interdisciplinary research, VPE is not only the task of computational scientist, but the mission of experimentalists, engineers and practitioners in chemical and process industries. It may also be integrated with cloud computation, enabling the advent of big data era in chemical engineering.

Key words: mesoscience, virtual process engineering, multiscale, mesoscale, multiphase reactor, big data, cloud computation