Events

ABSTRACT:  Process analytics play a key role in achieving the process control strategy objectives in manufacturing processes. It has the potential to enhance continued process verification and applications in real-time process monitoring and control. Process analytical methods including, near-infrared (NIR), fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy as well as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), are often used in the characterization of raw materials, in-process/intermediate and final product quality attributes of manufacturing processes.

ABSTRACT:  Chemical engineering models may have many reactions, many kinetic parameters, and many mass transfer and thermodynamic constants. Consequently, models that can fully describe a chemical engineering process are usually nonlinear and complex and have many unknown parameters. Additionally, chemical engineering models are not perfect and there are random disturbances from the environment that should be estimated.

ABSTRACT:  With the growing demands placed on industrial production to achieve an integrated smart plant, factories require the development of efficient and viable methods for analysing and assessing the available data. Recently, the emphasis has focused on the development of data-driven control methods that use economic key performance indices (KPIs).

ABSTRACT:  With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices and smart manufacturing, the amount of data collection has grown exponentially in a manner analogous to the Moore's law. The explosion in data availability, variety and size have enabled engineering, medicine, science and finance to heavily invest in data-based learning projects. Some of the successful learning projects, include The Human Genome Project, Google Flu Trends, Tesla Self-Driving Car Project and GE Industrial IoT.

ABSTRACT:  Molecular transport spanning multiple phases and drastically different length scales occurs in our daily life and controls our health and surrounding environment; such transport phenomena include greenhouse gas generation from combustion of fossil fuels and drug transport and delivery within the human body.

ABSTRACT:  Lattice Boltzmann methods, due to their amenability to parallelization and ability to handle geometrically complex boundaries, are appealing for simulating flows with particles, droplets, and bubbles when experimental observations and manipulations are not possible. This talk will present recent advances in the use of these methods for simulating droplet coalescence and particle motion in confined geometries.

ABSTRACT:  Thin porous materials are found in many critical applications such as battery and fuel cell electrodes, wound dressings, filtration membranes, fabrics and paper, to name a few.  The standard body of porous media techniques and theories have been developed for rock and soil pertaining to reservoirs and aquifers.  Consequently, studying transport processes in thin porous materials generally requires developing new approaches, both experimental and modeling. 

ABSTRACT:  Globe warming and energy security are two major challenges the world is facing today. To preserve our environment and energy resource, it is imperative to maximize the utilization of existing fuels while exploring renewable sources. Fuel cell and lithium metal battery as the next-generation high-efficiency energy conversion and storage devices have attracted a great deal of attentions in recent years. This presentation summarizes some recent progresses in my laboratory in these two research areas.

ABSTRACT:  In order to reduce carbon emissions and construct sustainable society, it is very important to construct sustainable biorefineries, which produce biofuel/biochemical from biomass. Consolidated bioprocessing (CBP), which integrates enzyme production, saccharification and fermentation into a single process, is a promising strategy for effective bioproduction.

ABSTRACT:  This presentation will provide an overview of recent progress and remaining technical challenges of PEM fuel cells. The important contribution of catalyst materials and catalyst layer towards wide-spread commercialization of fuel cells will be highlighted. The advantage and possible limitations of various types of catalysts, such as Pt alloys (de-alloys), core-shell catalysts and shape-controlled nanocrystal catalysts will be assessed.