FOCUSING MATERIALS RESEARCH THROUGH PROCESS MODELING

A brief introduction to chemical engineering modeling is given. It is then applied to several systems, showing that the introduction of dimensionless variables in the model equations enable the identification of the parameters that control the systems behavior. These parameters can generally be determined by independent experiments for a given system and the behavior of the system can be reasonably predicted through simulation. The systems here considered are the removal of color from liquid streams using natural waste materials from the Portuguese seafood industry, carbon filters for individuals protection in toxic environments, a class of polyacrilic gel beads reinforced by a polyamide membrane for metals extraction from aqueous media and the use of exhausted resins from an industrial demineralizing plant in the recovery of gold. The eventual weaknesses of the materials used in those processes are evidenced by simulation, showing the limiting parameters and in what sense should they be changed in order to improve the system behavior.