(228a) Multi-Scale Methodology for Process Engineering Innovations

Challenges in quantitative design of chemical processes mainly reside in their complex structures, which are usually multi-scale in nature, and are difficult to analyze by the average approach as commonly used. The multi-scale objective variational (MOV) methodology is promising in coping with complex systems and sheds light on innovations of new and/or improved chemical processing technologies for sustainable energy and environment. This presentation will provide an overview of four critical issues in the MOV methodology, (i) correlation between phenomena at different scales, (ii) compromise between different dominant mechanisms, (iii) coupling between spatial and temporal structural changes, (iv) critical phenomena occurring in complex systems. Impacts of this methodology on process engineering innovation will be elaborated with nearly three-decade development at Institute of Processing Engineering (IPE) from a rough idea to modeling approaches, software, supercomputing hardware and finally to industrial applications as well as its extension to a number of chemical and physical systems. Possibility of realizing virtual process engineering based on the accuracy and efficiency of this methodology and dramatic changes in high-performance computing will be prospected finally.