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The historical turning point we are now facing is the biggest since the Industrial Revolution. For sustainable social metabolic system development, a transformative change in industrial processes and systems as well as our lifestyles is required. A firm cornerstone for a constructive life, a clear perspective for science and technology, and open mindedness will help us to tackle the big issue of a transformative redesign of our society. Furthermore, for effective change from centralized to decentralized energy systems, it is necessary to empower regional communities. This article presents six features concerning the above issues that are methodologically valuable for researchers and engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental and resource crises that confront human life on earth demand changes to the whole socio‐economic metabolic system. The changes will affect all aspects of life, including the practice of chemical engineering. The historical association of the profession with the fossil carbon economy means that the expertise that makes up chemical engineering must be re‐examined and repurposed urgently if the discipline is to play a full role in the socio‐economic transition. In this article, we review the historical development of chemical engineering to identify its unique features and find ways in which it can change to meet the challenge. A pattern of 30‐year cycles in the development of the discipline is revealed, showing the way it has built up by incorporating approaches from other disciplines and also developing a unique set of skills and knowledge. Chemical engineering as taught needs to prepare graduates to operate under the kind of social contract embodied in declarations by professional bodies. We propose ways in which the expertise comprising chemical engineering can be applied in the 'just transition' to a less unsustainable society, including new approaches to plant and process design and also applications 'outside the pipe' to environmental modelling and industrial ecology. The unsustainability crisis results from a history of poor public and private decisions, so examination of the different types of decisions is timely. Specific roles for chemical engineers in deliberative decision processes are identified, including enhanced emphasis on risk and precaution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the process intensification of ferrite production, fluidized bed calcination of raw‐mix (RM) particles for strontium ferrite was tested in a laboratory scale fluidized bed. In cases when the bed was made only of RM particles, agglomeration took place above 900 K, and above 1350 K rapid defluidization was unavoidable. However, successful calcination with no defluidization was achieved by calcining RM particles in the bed of coarse spherical alumina particles. One kilogram of calcined product was produced by repeated batch calcination at 1423 K and with retention time of 60 minutes. The products were made into magnets and their magnetic properties were evaluated. The magnetic properties of fluidized bed product were compatible with rotary kiln products, although residue of unreacted Fe2O3 seemed to have detracted the former somewhat. The presence of unreacted Fe2O3 was found to be caused by the selective adhesion of SrCO3 on the bed material. A slight adjustment of Fe/Sr ratio in the RM was found to be effective in the elimination of such residuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because it is the most promising method for reforming tar in a gasification system, a catalytic steam reforming reaction of tar using a dyeing sludge ash catalyst that contains mostly iron oxide has been modeled using benzene to investigate whether a steam reforming catalyst produced from waste is viable. The catalytic activity of the ash catalyst is similar to that of the commercially available iron-chrome-based catalyst for the same equivalent total amount of FeO. The activity over the ash catalyst has been examined in terms of the weight hour space velocity (WHSV) and the reaction temperature to develop a model for the reaction kinetics. Using a power law model, the reaction order coefficients of the benzene and steam were estimated to be 0.43 and 0, respectively. The activation energy required for the ash catalyst was approximately 187.6 kJ mol. In addition, the reductive properties of the iron oxide in the ash catalyst were also examined via XRD and H-TPR analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixing and segregation behavior of granular flows inside a particulate system comprising an oscillating sectorial container is predicted by an artificial neural network (ANN) model. By employing discrete element method (DEM), numerically simulated characteristics of a sectorial container, which is subjected to harmonic angular oscillations, are trained for the development of a neural network model. Binary system of particles is simulated and degree of mixing is estimated by varying different parameters, such as particle size ratio (1:1 to 1:3), frequency of oscillations (1 to 4 Hz), amplitude of oscillations (30 to 60°), volume filling fraction (0.04 to 0.24), and number of cycles (1 to 20). The learning of ANN is accomplished by feed forward back propagation algorithm. It is found that mean mixing concentration predicted by the neural network model developed in this work is in a good agreement with the simulated values. Percentage error predicted by ANN model is less than ± 8% for 82 out of the 90 data values. Development of the neural network model and its use for the prediction of the outcome of the system (especially in cases where several operating parameters, which determine the outcome of the system, have a non-linear relationship with each other) is believed to be an accurate and computationally inexpensive way of understanding the behavior of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential importance of surface cohesion effects in a polyolefin reactor was demonstrated by DEM (discrete element method) simulation. Searching for a more realistic particle-to-particle interaction, for more realistic DEM simulation the force-deformation characteristics were measured for the laboratory synthesized polypropylene (PP) particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]