Chemical product engineering (CPdE) as a new direction of research and education, or a new paradigm of chemical engineering (ChE) has been proposed for twenty years. However, interpretation of the core of the CPdE discipline is diverse and chemical engineers working for process development and scale-up feel confused and lost about their role in CPdE. In this perspective, the CPdE discipline is revisited and analyzed and the core of the discipline is proposed as the manipulation of the microstructure of products through chemical processes and achieved by using chemical equipments. CPdE still falls into chemical process engineering, which is the process engineering for controllable, targeted, and efficient fabrication of the structure of high value-added products. By analogy with process development and scale-up to meet market demand and to increase production efficiency, the research needs are identified for CPdE to control the microstructure and optimize the performance of products. Finally, the methodologies for CPdE are briefly discussed.

Industrial crystallization is a “semi-artistic science” and its process has the characteristics of multi-objective, non-linear and strong coupling. It is well-known by international scholars as one of the most difficult unit operations of chemical engineering to design. On the basis of the domestic and international research progresses on the topic of industrial crystallization and intelligent manufacturing, this review intends to construct a multi-scale research framework of industrial crystallization with intelligent manufacturing technologies to confront with the major strategic demands and historical opportunities of intelligent manufacturing development. The review summarizes the application of core intelligent manufacturing technologies including AI, cloud computing, and internet of things in industrial crystallization with some relevant cases. It will mainly focus on the analysis and discussion of development status and potential integration point of prediction of solubility, polymorphs, crystal habit, and co-crystals with intelligent manufacturing. Some methods for predicting the crystallization conditions of proteins is introduced. Finally, the intelligent control technologies of perception, analysis and decision in crystallization process were reviewed.

China is a country with more coal, less gas and lean oil. The coalbed methane reserves are about 30 trillion cubic meters. Due to the lack of advanced and practical separation technology for the low concentration coal mine methane (CMM), only about 50% total drained CMM is utilized at present. The recovery and utilization of low concentration CMM provide a number of significant energy, economic and environmental benefits. Situation of extraction and utilization of CMM resource in China is briefly introduced. Research on adsorption materials and adsorption processes for the enrichment of low concentration CMM in recent years have been surveyed and future research on these two areas has been discussed. The adsorption capacity and selectivity of the adsorbents is low when they are used to separate low concentration coal mine methane. And the performance of the typical pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process is limited. Finally, the development of adsorbents with high CH₄ adsorbed amount and high CH₄/N₂ selectivity and novel PSA process are proposed for the future enrichment of low concentration coal mine methane.

Microfluidics and nanofluidics investigates fluid behaviours and measures fluid properties in micro-and nano-scale, offering unique advantages of visualization, high speed and high accuracy. The recent two decades witnesses the boom of micro-and nano-fluidic technology in fluid phase behaviour studies. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of recent progress in studying fluid phase behaviours using micro-and nano-fluidic technology. Specifically, we focus on the research progress in phase behaviours of protein, polymer, surfactant and salt, industrial gas, and oil and gas. Microfluidic methods are mostly developed for practical purposes to compete with conventional PVT (pressure-volume-temperature) method, which suffers a series of deficiencies such as sample-and time-consuming, slow heat and mass transfer, and safety concerns associated with large sample volume. On the other hand, nanofluidic methods focus on uncovering fundamentals of nano-confinement effect on fluid phase behaviours, which exhibits high significance in science merits. At the same time, the development prospect of micro-nano flow control technology in the field of fluid phase characteristics is prospected.

Microreactor is generally referred to a mini-reactor made by microfabrication and precision machining technology. It is one of the core components of microchemical technology. Compared with the traditional batch reactor, the microreactor has many advantages, which complies with the requirements of high technology content and sustainable development. In chemical engineering, materials, biology and many other fields of research and production process, the microreactor has a broad application. It involves the synthesis process of the dangerous or unstable chemical compounds and the high exothermic reaction process. In this paper, two parts are introduced respectively, involving the research progress of continuous diazotization and continuous diazotization/coupling reaction for synthesis of azo dyes and azo pigments. The microreactor technology makes the chemical reaction process become faster, safer and more environmentally friendly, so it has high industrial application value and is one of the future development directions of the chemical industry.

Fabrication of functional metal nanocomposites by using protein and its self-assemblies as template has aroused the interest of the researchers. Protein and its self-assemblies generally exhibit various morphological structures and possess specific molecular-recognition as well as biomimetic mineralization capabilities. These characteristics make them could play an important role of structural orientation and morphology control during the assisted synthesis of metal nanostructures. And the fabricated protein-metal nanostructures composites exhibit broad prospect of applications in catalytic conversion, biosensing, medical imaging and so on. Based on the differences in structural characteristics of proteins and their assemblies, this review summarizes the recent progress in the construction of metal nanocomposites based on protein single subunits, protein multi-subunit super assembled structures and three-dimensional protein crystals. The direction of research and development is forecasted. Furthermore, the future research direction in this field is prospected.

Micro-chemical engineering and technology is one of the frontiers in modern chemical engineering. The kinetics of droplet and bubble rupture in the microchannel is the basis and difficulty to determine the number of parallel microchannels in the multiphase process. The progress in dynamics of bubble and droplet breakup in microchannels will be summarized from the aspects of flow transition conditions for breakup, interfacial dynamics and size manipulation. The rupture behavior and influencing factors of bubbles and droplets in symmetrical microchannels, asymmetrical microchannels, microfluidic device with multi-level branching channels, bypass microchannels and microchannel with obstructed structure are discussed. The shortcomings of the related researches on bubble and droplet breakup behavior at microscale are pointed out, and the development direction in this field for the future is pointed out.

Bio-inspired interfacial materials are new class of functional materials. The materials with special wettability have emerged as a powerful tool for solving the real-world issues in both researches and applications relating to physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. Within the last decade, the functional interfaces possessing extreme interaction with different fluids has been massively designed and prepared, such as superhydrophobicity, superhydrophilicity, and so on. On the basis of the unique interaction between fluids and solids, these functional interfacial materials offer great opportunity to develop the fluid delivering process, which could open a new way to optimize the current chemical engineering. In this review article, we firstly introduce the basic knowledge of bio-inspired interface materials and the special wetting phenomena in solid/liquid/gas three-phase systems. In the second part, five important applications in field of chemical engineering were reviewed, including heat transfer, multiphase separation, anti-corrosion of reactors and pipes, heterogeneous catalysis, and the directional transport of fluids. The perspective and the current challenge of “how to apply the bio-inspired interface materials” are proposed in the last part.

With the gas flow rates of 5-25 m³·h^-1 and liquid flow rates of 0.2-0.6 m³·h^-1, the fluid mechanics performance of a Venturi gas-liquid distributor were investigated in a trickle bed reactor with an internal diameter of 28 cm. The Sauter mean particle size of the outlet droplets was measured with a laser particle size analyzer. The distribution uniformity was determined by using a liquid collection tray and special model tests were designed to test resistance to tray unlevelness. The results show that the Venturi structure enhances the gas-liquid mixing. Compared with the bubble cap type distributor, this distributor has a better droplet crushing performance. The increase of the gas velocity causes the outlet liquid changing from the umbrella flow to the jet flow, but it can still distribute evenly in the area where the diameter is approximately 10 times the diameter of gas-liquid outlet. When the gas and liquid loads are 10-20 m³·h^-1 and 0.4-0.6 m³·h^-1, respectively, the liquid level is between liquid inlets and gas inlets, the distributor has excellent performance of resistance to tray unlevelness. The computational fluid dynamics software is used to simulate the gas-liquid flow process inside the distributor, and the vector diagram of phase content and velocity is obtained, which is beneficial to the analysis and improvement of the distributor.

The non-blocking rupture process of droplets in asymmetric T-type microchannels was studied using a high speed camera. The glycerol-water solution and mineral oil with 4%(mass) surfactant Span-20 were introduced as the dispersed phase and continuous phase, respectively. The breakup process of droplet could be divided into three stages:entering stage, deformation stage and breakup stage. The breakup stage could be further divided into two sub-stages:fast breakup stage and thread breakup stage. The effects of liquid superficial velocity, the dimensionless length of the droplet and the viscosity ratio between dispersed phase and continuous phase on the breakup stage were investigated. The results indicated that the fast breakup stage was a self-similar process, the evolution of the dimensionless minimum width of the droplet neck with the dimensionless remaining time could be scaled by a power-law relationship, and the value of power law index was about 1.35. In the thread breakup stage, the dimensionless minimum width of the droplet neck was linear with the dimensionless remaining time. The slope of line increased with the increase of liquid superficial velocity and the dimensionless droplet length, and reduced with the increase of the viscosity ratio between dispersed phase and continuous phase.

The uniformity of the gas-liquid two-phase flow and slug bubble in a symmetrical parallelized branching microchannel were studied by using a high-speed camera system. The glycerol-water solution containing 0.3% SDS and nitrogen were used as the liquid phase and the gas phase respectively. Two flow patterns of slug flow and bubble flow were observed, and a flow pattern and a flow pattern transition line composed of two-phase operation conditions were made. The results show that the non-uniformity of bubbles is caused by the hydrodynamics interaction between the two channels, the hydrodynamics feedback of the downstream channels, and the manufacturing differences of microchannels. With the increase of viscosity of the liquid phase, the uniformity of the bubbles becomes better. The bubble size distribution can be more uniform for high liquid flow rates and low gas pressures. The prediction models of bubble size in both microchannels were established based on the conservation principle of pressure drop and the gas-liquid two-phase flow resistance model.

The nozzle structure has an important influence on the mixing and mass transfer performance of the jet bubbling reactor. In this paper, air-water is used as the simulation medium, and the double-probe conductivity probe, electrolyte tracer method and dynamic dissolved oxygen method are used to compare the bubble size distribution in the jet bubbling reactor with the reduced diameter circular nozzle and the rotary triangular nozzle. The results show that the variation rules of the average gas holdup, the liquid mixing time and the liquid volumetric mass transfer coefficient with the increase of the superficial gas velocity and the liquid jet Reynolds number in the jet bubbling reactors with two kinds of nozzles are the same. Compared with the case with necking circular nozzle, the bubble size is smaller, the average gas holdup is higher and the mixing time is shorter in the case with twisted triangular nozzle. The nozzle structure has little influence on the gas-liquid mass transfer coefficient when the gas input power accounts for more than 20% of the total input power. However, the gas-liquid mass transfer performance of the twisted triangular nozzle is better than that of the necking circular nozzle when the gas input power accounts for less than 20% of the total input power. The research results can provide theoretical guidance for the optimization of the nozzle structure in the industrial jet bubbling reactor.

A three-dimensional CFD model of perforated vaporization mass transfer of hollow fiber membrane was established. The effect of Dean vortex on mass transfer in pervaporation process was studied. Concentration profiles and velocity distribution inside the membrane were determined and the mass transfer coefficient simulated by this model was validated by Leveque equation. The results showed that the mass transfer resistance of bounder layer in the curved membrane was influenced by Dean vortex, and the total mass transfer coefficient was improved 4 times over the straight membrane. The wall shear stress inside the curved membrane is larger than the straight membrane at different inlet velocity and concentration. When membrane resistance was much less than boundary layer resistance, inlet velocity was 0.275 m·s^-1 and water concentration was 10%(mass), permeation flux in the curved membrane was 12636 g·m^-2·h^-1, which is 4 times higher than the one in straight membrane. It proved that the predicted data are consistent with Leveque equation, and the curved membrane has significant effect of mass transfer enhancement in pervaporation process.

A hydrodynamic model of membrane assembly strengthened by rotating flow is proposed and optimized. The Box-Behnken method is used for multi-parameters experimental design with parameters of inlet diameter, inlet length, shell tube height, inlet/outlet and tube height, inlet-outlet tube horizontal inclined angle θ, inlet-outlet and ring protuberance radian, the membrane module design schematic is obtained by optimized response variants. By coupling the Reynolds stress turbulence model (RSM) with the discrete phase model based on the Euler-Lagrangian discrete phase model (DPM), the residence time distribution and the fluid mechanical properties of the liquid-solid two-phase flow in the three-dimensional model were simulated. The simulation results show that the shell-side velocity distribution of the optimized membrane module is more uniform, the turbulent flow dissipation rate is lower, and the shear stress distribution and vorticity distribution are different from the traditional membrane modules. The experimental results confirm that the optimized membrane module has higher water yield, lower pressure drop and lower membrane fouling rate.

A high speed camera was used to investigate the mass transfer performance of CO₂ absorption into aqueous mixture of monoethanolamine with N-methyldiethanolamine in T-shaped microchannel. Effects of two-phase flow rates, MEA and MDEA concentrations on liquid mass transfer coefficient k_Land volumetric mass transfer coefficient k_La were investigated under slug flow. The mass transfer coefficient and volumetric mass transfer coefficient increased with the increase of MEA concentration, however, the MDEA concentration had an relatively small effect on mass transfer. The mass transfer coefficient and volumetric mass transfer coefficient increased with the increase of the liquid flow rate. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient increased rapidly, and then tended to a constant with gas flow rate, but the mass transfer coefficient was insensitive to gas flow rate. Considering the strengthening effect of chemical reaction on mass transfer, the Hatta number Ha is introduced, and a new volumetric mass transfer coefficient prediction formula is proposed. The predicted values agreed well with the experimental data.

Hydrophilic surface modification of the catalyst surface is a common regulation method, which has an important influence on the catalytic activity, selectivity and stability of the catalyst. In this study, the hydrogen-oxygen catalytic system was used as the research object, and the adsorption of hydrogen and water on different hydrophilic surfaces was calculated by multiscale density function theory (DFT) under molecular level. Finally, the effect of adsorption on reactive rate was studied. The results showed that the adsorption amount of water increased with more hydrophilic surface while the adsorption amount of hydrogen decreased. In addition, increasing bulk water density enhanced the adsorption of hydrogen on the surface. The above results not only explained the influence of hydrophilicity on the catalytic activity of the catalyst, but also had helpful guiding for the adjustment and enhancement of the surface reaction process.

Propylene/1-butene polymer alloys were prepared by in-situ slurry polymerization with spherical supported Ziegler-Natta catalyst and the technology of monomer composition switching method. Combining the kinetic model of propylene/1-butene copolymerization and the material balance, a reactor model with the monomer composition switching was developed by the moment method. The model parameters were fitted according to the real-time consumption rate of propylene obtained from experiments. The polymerization reactivity, the product's composition and their changes with switching frequency of monomer composition were simulated. The results show that the model can well describe the polymerization rate at different stages, the catalyst activity, the total content of 1-butene in the alloy, and the contents of random copolymer and “block” copolymer at various switching frequencies. It has been revealed also that the pulse feed of propylene in the copolymerization process is conducive to increasing the monomer diffusion to the active center, thereby increasing the polymerization rate and polymerization activity.

ZIF-67 was used as a template for producing metal and nitrogen doped carbon composite as electrocatalysts. By an in-situ polymerization of dopamine on the surface of ZIF-67, Co²⁺ ions were extracted into the polydopamine shell due to the strong chelation between them and led to the decomposition of ZIF-67, which resulted into a hollow composite of Co-PDA. Subsequently, a yolk-shell structure of metal and nitrogen doped carbon composites (Co@Co-N/C) was obtained by a high temperature pyrolysis at 900℃. The unique structure of Co@Co-N/C provided excellent bifunctional electrocatalysts for both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), repetitively. For ORR, the half-wave potential was 0.81 V and the Tafel slope was 60 mV/dec. For OER, the overpotential was 390 mV at the current density of 10 mA/cm², and the Tafel slope was 71 mV/dec. More importantly, the total oxygen electrocatalytic activity was as low as 0.82 V.

Heterogeneous Fenton reaction is an effective method for the degradation of organic pollutants in the waste water. The improvement of H₂O₂ utilization efficiency for hydroxyl (·OH) production is the primary challenge to enhance the efficiency and reduce the cost for waste water degradation. Cu/Al₂O₃ catalysts were prepared through a sol-gel method. Based on the formation efficiency of ·OH, the reaction temperature, the pH of the reaction solution and the initial concentration of H₂O₂ were the main factors determining the utilization of H₂O₂ by single factor experiments. Through the design of experiments via response surface methodology and the analysis of the regression equation, the influence of three independent variables, initial H₂O₂ concentration, pH and reaction temperature, and their interactions on H₂O₂ utilization efficiency was evaluated. To achieve the highest H₂O₂ utilization efficiency, the optimum parameters were determined as 707 mg·L^-1 of H₂O₂ initial concentration, 5.12 of pH and 59.4℃ of reaction temperature. The corresponding H₂O₂ utilization efficiency is 0.57 and the relative error is only 3.5% compared with experimental value, suggesting that response surface methodology can provide important guidance on reducing cost and improving efficiency for waste water treatment.

Structured anodic AlOOH with dominant facets has catalytic characteristics of formaldehyde at low temperature, which were developed and investigated in terms of the catalytic performance in formaldehyde oxidation. To enrich the surface hydroxyl content of AlOOH, Pt/Na_x/AlOOH catalysts with different Na contents (0.13%, 0.19%, 0.30%, 0.41%) were prepared by Na₂CO₃ as Na precursor impregnation method. The results given by BET, FTIR and XPS indicate that the soidum-modified Na/AlOOH has much more surface hydroxyls groups, the specific surface area of Pt/Na_x/AlOOH and the catalysts have higher Pt dispersion and smaller Pt NPs. When Na content was 0.41%, the Pt dispersion of Pt/0.41Na/AlOOH reached to 56%. The results testified that HCHO was completely diminished at 60℃ over Pt/0.41Na/AlOOH, which has the highest catalytic activity of formaldehyde.

The non-isothermal curing kinetics of polyurethaneunder CO₂ and N₂ atmosphere in the pressure range of 0.1-6 MPa were studied using a high-pressure DSC. The Kissinger method and isoconversional method with two different integral equations were adopted to calculate the activation energy. Based on the non-isothermal measurements, the curing mechanism functions f(α) and kinetic parameters could be obtained by the Málek mehod. Then the curing kinetic equations of PU at different pressures of CO₂and N₂ were determined, and the effects of high pressure CO₂ and N₂ on the curing process could also be investigated. The results indicated that the activation energy decreased with the increasing of gas pressures which could be explained by the solvent effect and static pressure effect, and high pressure CO₂is more beneficial to promote curing reaction than N₂. Using the Sestak-Berggren model, it is found that the model is consistent with the DSC curve obtained by non-isothermal test in different pressure gas atmospheres, indicating the system conforms to the autocatalytic model in the presence of atmospheric pressure and high pressure gas.

Preparation of sec-butylbenzene peroxide (SBBHP) by liquid-phase oxidation of sec-butylbenzene (SBB) in absence of catalyst is a key step in production of phenol and methyl ethyl ketone. Based on free radical chain reaction mechanism of hydrocarbon oxidation, SBB oxidation kinetic model was established under oxygen-enriched and oxygen-limited conditions, including reactant SBB, main product SBBHP, and side products acetophenone (ACP) and 2-phenyl butanol (PBO). Rate constants and activation energies of corresponding elementary steps were obtained by fitting experimental data at various conditions of 388-403 K. The results showed that, due to steric hindrance effect, activation energy of main reaction of SBB to SBBHP was larger than that of isopropyl benzene (IPB) to IPB hydroperoxide (IPBHP). Continuous process experiments further verified reliability of the kinetic model. These results may be useful for design and optimization of SBB liquid-phase oxidation to SBBHP, and helpful to understand oxidation mechanism of aromatic hydrocarbons.

Bitumen is an important organic matter in oil shale and also a vital intermediate product from pyrolysis of kerogen to oil and gas. Soxhlet extraction is employed to obtain bitumen from Green River oil shale, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of the bitumen is carried out under different heating rates. Based on TGA data, isoconversional Friedman method is used to estimate activation energy of bitumen pyrolysis, and the characteristic of activation energy indicates that its pyrolysis most likely involves three processes. Then, bi-Gaussian function is used to deconvolute DTG curves with overlapping peaks into three independent peaks. Subsequently, non-linear least square method is performed to analyze the peaks to estimate activation energies, pre-exponential factors and general forms of reaction models of each process. Comparisons are then made between general forms of reaction models and 11 kinetics models based on four solid-state pyrolysis mechanisms to discriminate reaction models, and results show that the three processes all follow nth-order kinetics model.

A stimulus-response technique was used to determine the residence time distribution (RTD) of liquid phase in the gas-liquid-solid mini-fluidized bed with 3 mm bed diameter. Deionized water and air were used as liquid phase and gas phase, respectively. Glass beads and alumina particles with the mean particle size of 0.123-0.222 mm were taken as solid phase. KCl tracer as an input signal was injected into the fluidized bed through a sample injector. The RTD of liquid phase was obtained by analyzing the conductivity at the bed outlet. The results indicate that the RTD become significantly smaller with the increase of superficial liquid and gas velocities. The mean residence time increases at lower superficial liquid and gas velocity or with the addition of solid particles. The flow is close to laminar flow when the superficial liquid velocity is set at 1.96-15.70 mm×s^-1, meanwhile superficial gas velocity 1.18-1.96 mm×s^-1. The mean residence time of liquid phase in the gas-liquid-solid mini-fluidized bed is (19.6±0.34) s-(48.0±0.92) s. A correlation of the Peclet number is able to predict the experimental data within a relative deviation of ±25%. The research results have guiding significance for the design amplification of small three-phase fluidized bed.

To study the effects of solid holdup on the characteristics of bubble behavior in an ebullated-bed reactor, dynamic gas disengagement was used in a plexiglas column of 7.0 m in height and 0.3 m in diameter under the condition of solid concentration from 9.8% (vol) to 39.0% (vol) by the total liquid and solid volume in the superficial gas velocity of 2.16-21.62 cm/s. The total gas holdup, bubble rise velocities, fractions and diameters of large and small bubbles were measured separately. The results show that the total gas holdup increases with the increase of superficial gas velocity, and decreases with the increase of solid holdup. With the increase of superficial gas velocity, the fraction, rising velocity, and diameter of large bubbles all increase. While for small bubbles, only their holdup increases obviously, but their rising velocity and diameter tend to decrease. With the increase of solid holdup, the rising velocity and diameter of large bubbles increase remarkably, but their holdup decreases slightly. When the solid content exceeds 19.5%(vol), the rising rate of small bubbles decreases to almost zero. When the solid content reaches 29.3%(vol), the small bubbles almost disappear.

In order to give consideration to both the high separation accuracy and large processing capacity, the parallel configuration of mini-cyclones is being used more and more. The influences of the spiral channel on the separation performance of the gas cyclones were investigated and the classification capacity and influences on particle distribution of the spiral channel were analyzed by discrete phase model (DPM) and classification experiments. The results showed that the large particles were inclined to discharge from the former outlets of the spiral channel and then enter the cyclones successively. The discharged particles presented different size distributions in every outlets, which contribute to the classification. The spiral channel made influences on the fine particles to force them enter the cyclone with a state that the finer particles are close to the outside wall, and the concentration of internal section is higher than that of the external one. The particle rings formed by the large particles promoted the separation of fine particles, thereby increasing the separation efficiency of the cyclone. The experiment further verified the classification capacity and influences on particle distribution of spiral channel. The results could provide directive significance to the parallel configuration of mini-cyclones.

A one-step phase separation method was used to prepare a membrane base on polyethersulfone (PES) and diethanolamine (DEA) as an additive and an amino carrier for CO₂ separation. CO₂ separation membranes show promising applications in energy gas purification and flue gas CO₂ capture. However, the separation performance of commercial membranes can hardly meet the practical requirement. To easily fabricate membrane with enhanced CO₂ separation performance, diethanol amine (DEA) was filled into polyether sulfone (PES) to fabricate asymmetric membranes in one-step by non-solvent induce phase separation (NIPs). The effects of the PES content, DEA content, coating thickness and the heat treatment on the separation performance of DEA/PES membrane were investigated by using CO₂/N₂ mixed gas (15/85 by volume). When the PES content was 26% and the DEA content was 12% in the coating solution and the feed gas pressure was 0.11 MPa, the DEA/PES membrane exhibited a CO₂permeance of 274 GPU and a CO₂/N₂selectivity of 50. The stability results indicate that the CO₂/N₂ separation performance of DEA/PES membrane remained stable at 40℃. Moreover, the CO₂/N₂ best-performing DEA/PES membrane was used to separate CO₂/CH₄ mixed gas (10/90 by volume). The CO₂/CH₄ separation performance at 1.0 MPa was better than commercial membranes. These results shows promising applications of DEA/PES membranes in CO₂ separation.

Aiming at the increasingly serious greenhouse effect and shortcomings of traditional CO₂-capture and storage technology (CCS), the two-stage and four-bed pressure swing adsorption (PSA) device was investigated to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas of power plant, which used carbon molecular sieve as the adsorbent of the first stage process and 13X zeolite as the adsorbent of the second stage process. In order to improve the recovery of CO₂, a cycle was added into the process. The mathematical model of the above process was established. Then experiment was carried out, and the accuracy of the model was verified by comparison between the results of experiment and simulation. Results of simulation displayed that the trace CO₂ (15%) in the flue gas could be enriched to 95% with a recovery of 93.92%. The productivity was 4.576 mol CO₂·h^-1·kg^-1 while the energy consumption was only 0.847 MJ·(kg CO₂)^-1. By comparing with other processes, this process has the characteristics of high recovery, high purity and large amount of productivity. On this basis, the analysis of energy consumption, the temperature distribution, composition distribution in solid phase and gas phase were carried out within a cycle.

Kaibel divided-wall column (KDWC) could separate four-component mixture into high-purity products in a single column. It is an intensified arrangement of three-component divided-wall column (DWC). Developing effective control structure is one of the main challenges of the application of KDWC. This work investigated a KDWC for the separation of a mixture of benzene, toluene, o-xylene and 1, 3, 5-trimethylbenzene. A temperature control (TC) structure and a new pressure-compensated temperature control (PTC) structure were developed in this work. Dynamic responses of the two control structures are compared. Disturbances in feed rate or feed composition were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the two control structures. The results showed that TC could regain stable control in facing of ±15% disturbances of feed rate or feed composition with the maximal residual error as about -0.007. One product purity failed to meet the specification. PTC shows a better control result in facing of ±20% disturbances. All the purity of the four products could meet the specification with the maximal residual error as about -0.003 and the setting time as 5-8 h. The new control method for the KDWC could give a dynamic set-point for the lower side-stream control loop, and thus presenting a better control performance.

The reaction mechanism of chemical process is complex. There is a modeling error between the mechanism model and the actual reaction system. At the same time, there are complex slow time-varying features, such as catalyst deactivation, fuel coking, etc. Thus there will be a mismatch between the process model and the actual process system. A self-adaptive iterative hybrid model (SAIHM) is established to reflect the dynamic characteristics of the process accurately over a long period. The mechanism model and the data-driven model are effectively combined to improve the prediction accuracy of the model; the data-driven model uses the deep recurrent neural network (DRNN) to fully exploit the timing relationship between adjacent conditions; the data-driven model is automatically updated based on the evaluation indicators to resolve the contradiction between accuracy and efficiency. The simulation and comparison results of the self-adaptive iterative hybrid model and the existing mechanism model established based on the historical operation data of an acetylene hydrogenation adiabatic reactor show that the self-adaptive iterative hybrid model can more effectively track the actual system.

In order to construct a novel energy level composite curve, the energy level concept is calculated by the differential concept. The new composite curve is capable of providing total energy target for the whole system. An energy level grand composite curve is further proposed to realize the simultaneous integration of thermal and work. The thermal target, the work target and the process exergy loss can be obtained in the energy level grand composite curve. The methanol synthesis process was selected for case study. Through graphic analysis of the energy level composite curve and the energy level grand composite curve, the work demand is 28 MW, the cold utility is 137 MW, and the energy consumption is reduced by 71.1%. Electricity and circulating cold water were selected as the utility of the methanol process.

The intensification of the Brønsted acidic ionic liquids (BILs) with different alkyl chain lengths with or without the sulfonic acid groups on the interfacial behaviors of H₂SO₄/C₄ hydrocarbons were studied by molecular dynamic (MD) simulation. The results indicated that the introduction of BILs into the H₂SO₄ can contribute to a better dissolution and diffusion of C₄ hydrocarbons at the interface compared to the pure H₂SO₄, which is helpful to the quality of alkylate. The stronger density enrichment at interface can be found for the cations with longer alkyl chains with their alkyl chains protruding more deeply into the C₄ hydrocarbons phase, which is beneficial to the enhancement of the interfacial properties. The longer alkyl chains can facilitate the dissolution of C₄ hydrocarbons, but increase the survival probability at the interface and limits their interfacial diffusion. Compared to the non-SFILs, the sulfonic-acid-functionalized ILs (SFILs) can facilitate a higher dissolution of isobutane but inhibit its diffusion at the interface. In this work, the intensification on the interfacial behaviors of C₄ alkylation provide deeper understanding of the C₄ alkylation process. The related results are expected to help the alkylation process strengthening and optimization and design of new catalysts.

A co-current dropwise addition method was employed to prepare γ-alumina with a large pore volume with sodium aluminate (NaAlO₂) and aluminum sulfate (Al₂(SO₄)₃) used as raw materials. The effects of the reaction pH during the precipitation process, raw material concentration, aging pH and adding surfactant sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) were investigated. It was found that raw material concentration could affect the nucleation-growth process and result in different morphologies, such as irregular sheets, fibers or granules, in which fibers could form the largest pore volume. When the NaAlO₂ concentration was 0.5-0.75 mol/L, the reaction pH was controlled at 8-9.5 and the aging pH was controlled at about 9, the obtained γ-alumina is fibrous. Besides, adding SDBS during the aging process could further improve the pore volume and pore size distribution. The method successfully prepared fibrous γ-alumina with a pore volume of 1.35-2.19 ml/g, a specific surface area of 300-500 m²/g and an average pore diameter of 14-21 nm, a fiber length of 50-60 nm and diameter about 5 nm. It can provide a good catalyst carrier for the residue hydrogenation process.

Three xanthates with different structures were prepared and employed in vinyl chloride (VC) solution and miniemulsion polymerizations as reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agents. It was found that VC polymerization could be well controlled by using O-ethyl-S-(1-ethoxycarbonyl) ethyl dithiocarbonate as the RAFT agent. The rate of VC RAFT miniemulsion polymerization was obviously higher than that of RAFT solution polymerization, and the conversion of VC was higher than 90% for the miniemulsion polymerization running for 12 h, while the molecular weight distribution of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) prepared by RAFT miniemulsion polymerization was wider than that of PVC prepared by RAFT solution polymerization. The ¹H NMR and UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy analysis of PVC-xanthate proved the presence of chain-end functional groups and the absence of structural defects. PVC-xanthate could be further used as macro-RAFT agent for VC and vinyl acetate polymerization, to prepare chain extended PVC and poly(vinyl chloride)-b-poly(viny acetate) copolymer, respectively. Combined with polymerization kinetics study, the living characters of xanthate-mediated solution and miniemulsion polymerizations of VC were verified.

Hydroxyl-terminated polyacrylate (PA-OH) was synthesized by free radical copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and n-butyl acrylate (BA) using mercaptoethanol as chain transfer. PA-OH was blocked with waterborne polyurethane (WPU) by block polymerization, and then prepared polyacrylate block waterborne polyurethane emulsion (WPUA) by prepolymer dispersion. A series of polyacrylate swelling-block waterborne polyurethane composite emulsions with MMA/BA as the monomer were prepared by emulsion polymerization. The results showed that the dosage of acrylates in WPUA-PA can reach 240% of WPUA. WPUA-PA has the best performance when the dosage of acrylates is 120% of WPUA. The average emulsion particle size is 68 nm, the particle distribution index is 0.174, the tensile strength of the film is 13.88 MPa, the elongation at break is 558.3%, the water absorption is 4.94%, and the emulsion stability is excellent.

A composite structural hydrogel comprising a graphene oxide (GO) sheet, a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) microgel sphere and a PNIPAM segment was designed and synthesized. Combination of the GO sheets and thermoresponsive PNIPAM microsphere polymeric networks provides the hydrogels with an NIR responsive property. The oxidized groups of GO nanosheets enable the formation of a hydrogen bond interaction with the amide groups of PNIPAM chains. PNIPAM microspheres in hydrogel improve the response rate and responsive swelling ratio. By changing the concentration of GO, synthesis time of the microsphere, concentration of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) and the propotion of microspheres and GO, the light and thermal sensitivity of the hydrogel can be enhanced. Compared to traditional PNIPAM hydrogel, such hydrogels are capable of responsing to light, achieving non-contact controlled deformation with high response speed and high degree of response, which may expand the scope of hydrogel applications, such as NIR-controllled switch, and provide enhanced performance.

Surface grafting bactericidal materials are commonly used methods to improve the antibacterial and anti-pollution properties of membranes. Guanidine compounds have received a lot of attentions due to their efficient and broad-spectrum antibacterial properties, easy preparation and low toxicity to the mammalian cell. Herein, a guanidine based polymer, namely PEIGH, was prepared through melt phase polycondensation of polyethyleneimine and guanidine hydrochloride, then used for ultrafiltration membrane surface modification with the assist of polydopamine. The results show that the synthesized PEIGH possesses good antibacterial property. Compared to the unmodified membranes, the membranes modified by PEIGH have better wettability. The permeation flux increases by 11%-98% and rejection for bovine serum albumin raises from 96.6% to 98.3% above. Antibacterial, anti-organic and anti-biobial properties have been significantly improved.

Stainless steel hollow fiber membrane has large pore diameter, and the direct coating of the separation layer is liable to cause surface defects. In this paper, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is added to the suspension of titanium dioxide as binder, and a uniform separation layer is formed on the surface of stainless steel hollow fiber membrane by vacuum assisted method. TiO₂/stainless steel hollow fiber composite membrane was obtained by sintering at high temperature. The influence of sintering temperature on the morphology and structure of the surface separation layer was studied. The surface morphology of TiO₂/stainless steel hollow fiber composite membranes was different at different sintering temperatures. The pore size and pure water flux of the composite membranes increased first and then decreased with the increase of sintering temperature. It was found that the surface coating was uniform, the pore size distribution was narrow and the water flux was higher when the sintering temperature was 500℃. Finally, SPT-500 was used to separate oil-water emulsion. The separation efficiency was over 99% and it has a good anti-fouling performance.

The dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations were performed to study the self-assembly behavior of amphiphilic nanoparticles in selective solvents. The effects of various parameters, including solvent selectivity, the length of grafting polymers and the grafting ratio of hydrophilic polymer to hydrophobic polymer, were studied. Then, the phase diagram of self-assembled morphology was constructed. A rich variety of morphologies, ranging from spherical aggregates, rod-like aggregates, two-dimensional membrane, and nanopore membrane were obtained as increasing the concentration of amphiphilic nanoparticles. Furthermore, the amphiphilic nanoparticles tend to self-assemble into the layered nano-aggregates when the solvent quality is poor (i.e.,a_S-HL=40k_BT/R_c, a_S-HB=50×k_BT/R_c), and the porous networked aggregates were observed at high concentration of amphiphilic nanoparticles. The simulation results also revealed that the self-assembled aggregates are largely controlled by the concentration of amphiphilic nanoparticles and the ratios of grafting hydrophilic polymers to grafting hydrophobic polymers. In view of the rich self-assembly behavior of the parental nanoparticles, it has great potential application value in gas separation, detection, drug loading, catalyst carrier and other fields.

Phenolic aerogel/carbon fiber composites with different microstructures have been prepared by sol-gel polymerization of phenolic resin and curing agent. The particle size and pore size of phenolic aerogel in the composites were controlled by changing the amount of curing agent. It was found that the particle size of the aerogels could be decreased from 368 nm to 54 nm with the decrease of the curing agent amount, corresponding to the decrease of average pore size from 5 μm to 230 nm. Furthermore, the properties of composites were strongly depended on the microstructure of aerogel, in which the mechanical strength and ablation property increased while the thermal conductivity decreased with nanoparticle size decreasing. The composites with the minimized particle size had a low density of 0.27 g·cm^-3, a high bending strength of 8.9 MPa and a low room-temperature thermal conductivity of 0.065 W·m^-1·K^-1. Under the oxyacetylene ablation conditions of 2000℃ for 30 s, its mass/linear ablation rate were 0.0081 g·s^-1 and 0.0204 mm·s^-1, respectively. By regulating the nanostructure of material, it can effectively improve the mechanics, heat insulation and ablation performance of the material to meet the needs of high performance thermal protection applications.

In order to improve the methane adsorption capacity of adsorbent, the metal-organic frameworks material HKUST-1 was synthesized by solvothermal method and follow by modification research. The optimized synthesis conditions were as follows:n(Cu(NO₃)₂·3H₂O):n(H₃BTC):n(DMF):n(C₂H₅OH):n(H₂O)=1.7:1:46:60:100, the crystallization temperature of 80℃ and the crystallization time of 24 h. The methane adsorption capacity of HKUST-1 was 11.9 mmol/g at 25℃. Acid ligand modification could increase the methane adsorption capacity of HKUST-1. When V_HAc/V_solvent=5.8%, the methane adsorption capacity of HAc-HK-1(5.8%) reached 12.6 mmol/g. Molecular simulation results show that the addition of acetic acid can regulate the pore structure of HKUST-1 crystal, increase the specific surface area and pore volume, and increase the methane adsorption capacity.

The printing and dyeing wastewater contains many poisonous and harmful substances, such as organic dyes and heavy metals, which has caused serious harm to the ecological environment and human health. Herein, a temperature responsive ultrafiltration membrane was fabricated with PNIPAM@PS spherical polymer brushes. It was prepared and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and the water contact angle experiments. Different nanoparticles, such as methyl blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB), and the CdSe heavy metal nanoparticles, were filtrated by PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane. The filtration performance was characterized by ultraviolet spectrophotometer (UV-Vis) and fluorescence spectrophotometer (PL). The rejection rate of this ultrafiltration membrane could be adjusted effectively by the length of PNIPAM chain, the size of PS core and operating pressure and temperature. If the temperature is higher than the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAM, the PNIPAM chains could shrink which induce the larger pore size of PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane, and vice versa. The pore size adjustability of PNIPAM@PS ultrafiltration membrane has broad application prospects in wastewater treatment.

The nano-dispersion formed by the hydrophobic nanoparticles dispersed in the organic system has unique physical and chemical properties and important application value. Currently, there is limited controllability in particle dispersion into organic phase during preparation. The agglomeration of nanoparticles, which results in not only particle sedimentation and loss but also decrease in the performance of nanodispersions, often occurs in their preparation, surface modification, and final application processes. In this study, two types of CuO nanodispersions, CuO-base oil nanofluids and CuO-based precursors for composite films, are adopted as the typical systems. A method for the preparation of high-concentration CuO-based nanodispersions by in situ dispersion of surface-modified CuO nanoparticles into the oil phase has been developed, while a plate-type microchannel was constructed to initiate microdroplet coalescence for the enhancement of particle dispersion. For the case of CuO-base oil nanofluids, the nanofluids with a high particle concentration of 2% (vol) and an average CuO particle size of approximately 30 nm could be controllably prepared. The viscosity, thermal conductivity, and stability of the nanofluids have been measured. A thermal conductivity of 0.184 W·m^-1·K^-1 was obtained for the 2% (vol) nanofluid along with an excellent stability. For the case of CuO-based precursors, the CuO-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite films prepared have exhibited remarkable antibacterial properties with a highly stable composite layer of CuO nanoparticles. On the basis of the systematic experimental study, the important role of in situ dispersion method in enhancing the efficient dispersion of surface-modified particles was proved. The effect of nanoparticle properties and dispersion behaviors on the performance of the dispersed particles have also been experimentally determined.