Structure Issue in Chemical Engineering

There exists the molecular-particle-equipment-system complex multi-scale structure in chemical engineering. There also exists the multi-scale heterogeneous structure in chemical reactor and separator. The main characteristic of this structure is that there are particles, gas bubbles, particle agglomerates, liquid drops in gas or liquid continuum. And their sizes are different; their distributions in continuum are heterogeneous. This heterogeneous structure is closely related to the behaviors of flow, transfer, and reaction. However, in traditional chemical engineering the multi-scale heterogeneous structure is ignored and the averaged and pseudo homogeneous method is adopted. As a result, the predictions for transfer and reaction behaviors and scale-up lead to big deviation and fault. In recent years, scientists are paying close attention to the structure issue of chemical engineering, and have made certain progresses in studying the structure prediction theory, the relationship between structure and transfer and reaction, the structure optimal control methods, and the TFM model combined with structure model for com-putational simulation.