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  • Oct
    22

    ChBE Seminar Series: Process Systems Engineering Methods for Multi-Scale Chemical Process and Product Design

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering

    9:00 AM LR4 Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    The fourth ChBE seminar of the Fall Quarter will be Thursday, October 22nd at 9am in LR4. Dr. Mario Eden from Auburn University will present a seminar titled, “Process Systems Engineering Methods for Multi-Scale Chemical Process and Product Design– detailed information is given below:

    Date & Time: Thursday, October 22nd 9:00 am – 10:00 am
    Location: Tech LR4 (refreshments will be available at 8:45am)

    Speaker: Dr. Mario Eden, Department Chair and McMillan Professor of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University

    Title: Process Systems Engineering Methods for Multi-Scale Chemical Process and Product Design

    Abstract
    Process and product design problems by nature are open ended and may yield many solutions that are attractive and near optimal. It is incumbent upon the process systems engineering community to help bridge the gap between fundamental science and engineering applications as new research areas continue to emerge. This presentation will highlight several novel methods for chemical process/product design, specifically: 1) Group contribution based synthesis of process flowsheets, 2) Efficient mixture/blend design using latent variable models; 3) Spatial molecular signature descriptors for generation of non-peptide mimetics; and 4) Modeling the dispersability of polydisperse nanoparticles in gas-expanded liquids.

    A systematic group contribution based framework has been developed for synthesis of process flowsheets from a given set of input and output specifications. Analogous to the group contribution methods developed for molecular design, the framework employs process groups to represent different unit operations in the system. Feasible flowsheet configurations are generated using efficient combinatorial algorithms and the performance of each candidate flowsheet is evaluated using a set of flowsheet properties. The design variables for the selected flowsheet(s) are identified through a reverse simulation approach and are used as initial estimates for rigorous simulation to verify the feasibility and performance of the design.

    Mixture design is a Design of Experiments (DOE) tool used to determine the optimum combination of chemical constituents that deliver a desired response (or property) using a minimum number of experimental runs. While the approach is sufficient for most experimental designs, it suffers from combinatorial explosion when dealing with the multi-component mixtures found in e.g. pharmaceutical excipients and polymer blends. The property clustering method can alleviate this limitation by transforming the properties to conserved surrogate property clusters described by property operators, which have linear mixing rules even if the operators themselves are nonlinear. Multivariate statistical methods, i.e. principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS), are utilized to generate the property operator models. The methodology is illustrated using several case studies including a polymer blend problem for the formulation of a thermoplastic.

    A novel method for incorporating three-dimensional structural information in molecular design algorithms has been developed. The molecular signature descriptor provides a systematic way to encode the atom type and connectivity of a molecular structure, where the signature of a molecule is a linear combination of its atomic signatures. Our earlier works have shown that the signature descriptor is a useful platform for integrating different types of property models, e.g. topological (QSAR/QSPR) and group contribution methods. We have extended this method to include three-dimensional information in the form of a spatial molecular geometry matrix, which can be manipulated to provide several useful descriptors. The ability to include the spatial/topographical (3D) arrangements of the atoms in a molecule is particularly important in applications such as molecular recognition.

    The precipitation and size-selective fractionation of nanoparticles is a crucial and exceedingly difficult part of post-synthesis nanomaterial processing. Due to the size-dependent properties of nanoparticles it is often necessary to fine-tune the materials for their intended application, e.g. contrast agents in medical imaging, drug delivery vehicles, highly selective catalysts, etc. Traditionally, these processing steps (particularly the size-selective fractionation) are somewhat trial-and-error in their application, and prediction of the size and size distribution of the recovered nanoparticle fractions is quite difficult. A thermodynamic model has been developed that can accurately predict (typically within 5%) the average size and size distribution of size-selectively fractionated nanoparticles. The application of the model is demonstrated using experimental data for a system of dodecanethiol-stabilized gold nanoparticles in hexane that are precipitated by the addition of CO2.

    Biography

    Dr. Mario Eden is the Department Chair and Joe T. & Billie Carole McMillan Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Auburn University. Dr. Eden is also the Director of an NSF-IGERT Program on Integrated Biorefining and the Acting Director of the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering. His main areas of expertise include process design, integration and optimization, as well as molecular synthesis and product design. His group focuses on the development of systematic methodologies for process and product synthesis, design, integration, and optimization.

    Dr. Eden received his M.Sc. (1999) and Ph.D. (2003) degrees from the Technical University of Denmark, both in Chemical Engineering. He has been an active member of the process systems engineering community for almost 15 years. Dr. Eden was recently elected Director of the CAST Division of AIChE and a Board of Trustee Member of Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE) Corporation. Dr. Eden was also selected to co-chair the 2014 Foundations of Computer Aided Process Design (FOCAPD) conference. He serves on the editorial boards for Clean Technologies & Environmental Policy, Chemical Process & Product Modeling, and the Journal of Engineering; the International Peer Review College for the Danish Council for Strategic Research; the advisory board for the Computer Aided Process Engineering Center (CAPEC-PROCESS), and is a member of the International Energy Agency Annex IX on Energy Efficient Separation Systems.

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    TIME Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    LOCATION LR4 Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Iman Nasser    iman.nasser@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering

  • Apr
    25

    ChBE Seminar Series: From, "Will this be on the exam?" to "I enjoyed learning": Motivating Chemical Engineering Education Contexts - Allison Godwin, Cornell University

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • May
    2

    ChBE Seminar Series: "Interfacial colloidal interactions, dynamics, and assembly: from biomembranes to ordered 2D materials" - Peter Beltramo, University of Massachusetts

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, May 2, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • May
    8

    Extending Care: A Conversation about Conservation and Futurity

    Block Museum of Art

    6:00 PM Block Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh

    EVENT DETAILSmore info

    TIME Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

    LOCATION Block Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh    map it

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    CONTACT Block Museum of Art    block-museum@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Block Museum of Art

  • May
    9

    ChBE Seminar Series: Influence of visible photons on catalytic reactions at metal nanoparticle surfaces - Phillip Christopher, University of California, Santa Barbara

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, May 9, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • May
    16

    35th Annual Hugh M. Hulburt Memorial Lecture: "Adsorption Thermodynamics for Process Simulation" - Chau-Chyun Chen, Texas Tech University

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4 (M113), Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4 (M113), Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Jennifer Young    jennifer.young@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • May
    23

    ChBE Seminar Series: ARDEI Annual Lecture - "Restructuring the STEM Pipeline: Dismantling Stereotypes and Microaggressions in STEM to Build Networks of Belonging and Support" - Christine Reyna, DePaul University

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • May
    30

    ChBE Seminar Series: Ruihan Li and Kunhuan Liu, Student Seminars

    McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

    9:30 AM LR4, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

    LOCATION LR4, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Olivia Wise    olivia.wise@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick-Chemical and Biological Engineering (ChBE)

  • Jun
    10

    Northwestern Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    9:00 AM Welsh-Ryan Arena

    EVENT DETAILSmore info

    TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena   

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    CONTACT Amy Pokrass    amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Jun
    10

    Northwestern Engineering Undergraduate Convocation

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    2:00 PM Welsh-Ryan Arena

    EVENT DETAILSmore info

    TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

    LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena   

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    CONTACT Amy Pokrass    amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Aug
    14

    Undergraduate Quantum Summer School

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    All Day Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

    EVENT DETAILSmore info

    TIME Wednesday, August 14, 2024

    LOCATION Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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    CONTACT Dongyang Li    lidongyang@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science