1. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/speme/ipse/ding/ y.ding@leeds.ac.uk
Process Intensification Using Particles Across Length Scales Professor Yulong Ding Institute of Particle Science & Engineering & Chemical Engineering Discipline University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom

2. Process Intensification
What is process intensification?
Concept put forward in 1970s when ICI invented the HiGee process (a rapid spinning disc…)
Such a concept has been used widely and some are long before 1970s!
Heat transfer using extended surfaces
Heat and mass transfer using internals
Separation enhanced reaction processes
Various intensive shear mixing processes
Microfluidics & nanofluidics
High throughput screening (Morden chemical & pharmaceutical practices)
Intensive farming & fishing (organic food)
High speed computing
Atomic & hydrogen bombs
… …

3. Contents Process intensification using particles for enhancing -
Heterogeneous catalytic reaction
Heat transfer using nanofluids
Stabilisation/de-stabilisation of microparticles
Summary

4. Process intensification using particles across length scales [1]
Separation enhanced reaction processes
- Le Chatalier’s principle (more effective for equilibrium controlled reactions)
A + B = C + D
Reactor C
A+B
in situ D separation
through membrane, adsorption, chemical acceptor, etc.

5. Process intensification using particles across length scales [2]
Separation enhanced reaction processes - SMR
In-situ adsorption and ex-situ desoption
Ding et al. (2005) Powder Technology, 153, Koumpouras et al. (2007) Chem. Eng. Sci. 62,

6. Process intensification using particles across length scales [3]
Separation enhanced reaction processes – current work: Steam reforming of glycerol
C3H8O3 → 3CO + 4H2
Glycerol is a major by-product of biodiesel production
EU currently produces approximately 6.8 billions litres of biodiesel per annum, which yields ~0.68 million tons of crude glycerol
Although a small portion of the crude glycerol is purified for pharmaceutical and food applications, the majority of it is taken as waste
With an increase in the biodiesel, production in the future, the amount of waste glycerol will certainly present a big challenge.

7. Process intensification using particles across length scales [4]
Heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids
Nanofluids: dilute suspensions of particles with at least one critical dimension smaller than ~100nm
Nanofluids are a type of colloids, or more fashionably, functional nanoparticle suspensions!
Ding et al. (2007) Adv. Powd. Tech., 18,
Chen et al. (2007) Chem. Phy. Lett., 444, Ding et al. (2007) KONA, 25, 23-38

8. Process intensification using particles across length scales [5]
Heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids
Wen & Ding (2004) J. Thermophy. Heat Transfer 18, Ding et al. (2007) Adv. Powd. Tech., 18,
Ding et al. (2007) KONA, 25, Gao et al. (2007) Chem. Phy. Lett., 434,
Prasher et al. (2006) APL, 89, Chen et al. (2007) Chem. Phy. Lett., 444,
Chen et al. (2007) New J. Phys., 9, 367, Chen & Ding (2008) Phy. Rev. Lett., submitted

9. Process intensification using particles across length scales [6]
Heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids – forced convection:
An industrial application in a small scale reacting system
3 x 3 x 100 mm reaction channels
two integrated heat exchangers
100 mm distance between working and heat transfer fluids
diffusion bonded 316 stainless steel
Fan et al. (2008) Green Chemistry, in press

10. Forced Convection of Nanofluids (9)
Process intensification using particles across length scales [7]
Heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids – forced convection:
An industrial application in a small scale reacting system
Ethylene glycol based TiO2 nanofluids
Mass flow rate = 5×10-3 kg s-1
Fan et al. (2008) Green Chemistry, in press

11. Process intensification using particles across length scales [8]
Heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids – forced convection:
An industrial application in a small scale reacting system
Initial concentration of benzyl alcohol: 0.2 mol L-1, P = 8 bar, FLiquid = 1 mL min-1,
FGas = 16 mL(STP) min-1, reaction channel size 100 mm × 3 mm × 3 mm
Dynamic switch of chemical reactions
Fan et al. (2008) Green Chemistry, in press

12. Process intensification using particles across length scales [9]
Stabiliser of dispersions – highly industrially relevant
Ding et al. (2007) unpublished work

13. Summary Particles can do the following if properly engineered –
Heterogeneous catalytic reaction
Heat transfer using nanofluids
Stabilisation/de-stabilisation of microparticles
Particles can do many more for us e.g.
Seeded nucleation for nanoparticle production (impurity nanoparticles)
Seeded granulation (micron particles)
Enhancing cohesive powder flow (nanoparticles)
Enhancing milling process (nanoparticles)
Enhancing properties of composite materials (nanoparticles and microparticles)
Enhanced wettability / spreadibility (nanoparticles)
Enhancing surface cleaning
Antimicrobial
… …