Founded in 1998, EUROKIN is a consortium of industrial and academic members whose aim is the implementation of best practise in the area of chemical reaction kinetics, particularly in the industrial environment. This includes reactor selection, high-throughput, instationary experimental techniques, intrinsic chemical reaction kinetics, assessment of transport limitations, parameter estimation, modeling, experimental design, software, reaction networks, catalyst deactivation, and workshops.
This is achieved by carrying out work in a number of areas to make the latest knowledge in these fields available to the end user.
In many cases this has resulted in the development of user-friendly tools to allow, for example, more efficient assessment of experimental conditions. Other work is aimed at evaluating software available for processing kinetic data while a number of leading academics and experts have been commissioned to produce reviews of the state-of-the-art in a number of chemical kinetics topics.
- Eurokin Slide show - Downloaded 2474 times
- Eurokin Slide show - Downloaded 2312 times
The general aim is to produce a pre-competitive toolkit for kinetic research
- Faster, cheaper, and better reaction rate expressions
- Enabling faster-to-market development and more accurate reactor designs
Three working areas can be distinguished:
Experimental set up
- Tool for the selection of a suitable test reactor for performing kinetics experiments (includes overview of properties of wide range of experimental reactors)
- Inventory of suppliers of experimental reactors (also for high throughput)
- Spreadsheets to check for the absence of transport limitations using various alternative correlations in a number of different types of experimental reactor (includes fixed beds, fluidized beds, structured catalysts (e.g. monoliths and foams), spinning basket reactors, slurry reactors, trickle beds, and gas-liquid heterogeneous and homogeneous systems with worked examples and background theory). It appeared that the importance of the catalyst properties and physical properties on the transport limitations and other effects causing non-ideality can be effectively tested using the perturbation approach.
- TGA based equipment and methods
- Non-thermal reactors (plasma, microwave, electrochemical)
- Heat transfer in fixed beds with shaped catalysts
- Single-pellet-string reactor (G/L and G/L/S)
- Electrification of reactors (focusing on resistive heating)
Kinetic data analysis
- Assessment of commercially available software packages for kinetic parameter estimation (includes 4 test cases as well as evaluation and performance results of selected packages)
- Sequential experimental design for kinetic model discrimination and parameter accuracy and also model-based ‘smart’ experimental design
- Coping with ‘irreducible’ transport limitations (including dedicated experimental techniques and models incorporating transport phenomena)
- Model library to facilitate the implementation of the reactor model equations for the estimation of kinetic parameters.
- Methods and tools for coping with the thermocouple ‘error’ caused by axial conduction.
- Methods for and modelling of the oxidative decoking of deactivated catalyst beds
- Review on data reconciliation focusing on data treatment to interpretable information and design considerations
- Transfer learning in kinetic parameter estimation
- A posteriori analysis of kinetic parameter estimation (outlier detection, optimal algorithm choice and alternatives to confidence interval analysis)
- Perturbation, error estimation and extrapolation of models
- Limit cycle prediction during runaway
State-of-the-art reviews and case studies
- Non-experimental (computational) methods for estimating reaction rate parameters.
- Methods for establishing reaction networks and various lumping approaches
- Molecular dynamics (dynamic techniques describing diffusivity in catalyst bodies including molecular dynamics, dissipative methods and Monte-Carlo)
- Hydrocracking kinetics (lumping, single-events approach and more)
- FCC with heavy feedstocks and FCC catalyst deactivation
- Review state-of-the-art in analysis techniques for petroleum fractions and how these may enable better lumping and modelling of complex systems
- Pyrolysis oil characteristics and purification for downstream processes
- Fermentation kinetics (experimental tools and methodologies, procedures and reaction kinetics of biomass-based processes and fuels obtained from fermentation)
- Methods for estimating liquid-phase reaction kinetics based on gas-phase experimental data
- Mixing for fast liquid-phase reactions
- Phase (dis)appearance in G/L/S reactors
- Polymerisation kinetics and depolymerisation (for recycle)
- Building micro-kinetic models (also using scaling relationships)
- Review of pore structure models and spatially resolved modelling of reaction and transport including porosity created from primary nanoparticles
- Kinetics of catalyst deactivation (including accelerated testing) and catalyst regeneration
- Possibilities and challenges in coupling chemical kinetics with computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
- Non-steady state methods for estimating reaction rate parameters. A value proposition of the dynamic methods applied at the academic Eurokin members has been published in a public journal.
- 3D printed catalysts (3D printing techniques for catalytic applications for improving mass transport and diffusion in catalyst bodies)
- Impact of reactor voids on reaction kinetics
- Reaction kinetics at high extent of reaction (i.e. systems with a high degree of conversion and evaluation of approaches used to cope with issues that (apparently) influence the kinetics at very low concentrations of reactants)
- Recycle reactors (reactors with internal and external recycle and related issues such as the residence time distribution)
- In-situ analysis techniques
- Process sampling methods
- Solid reaction kinetics and kinetics of precipitation
- TGA-based equipment/methods
- Runaway reactions in catalytic and non-catalytic gas-phase systems (including experimental work, focusing on steady-states multiplicity, Hopf bifurcation and limit cycle)
- Machine learning techniques oriented towards process modeling and control
- CO2 conversion techniques – energetics – kinetics
In addition, regular meetings are held at which progress in the various research areas is presented and to which experts in the field are invited to lecture on the latest advances in chemical kinetics.
Eurokin thus forms the hub of a network of scientists and technologists active in the field focusing on the commercial applicability of the tools and provides the opportunity to swap experience and discuss problems concerning reaction kinetics.
Results are made available through the Eurokin website (https://eurokin.org/), access to which is restricted to the Eurokin members although a limited amount of material is accessible for the public domain.
