Doktorgrad, tidsnormert

PhD-programme at the Chemical Engineering Department

At the Department of Chemical Engineering PhD studies are offered within a wide spectra of interesting and important national and international engineering fields.

The thesis may be focused towards design of novel chemical processes, scaleup of new chemical processes from laboratory scale to industrial scale, or optimize spesific existing chemical processes. In other cases it is more interesting to develop methods, experimental as well as mathematical and numerical, as a tool for better characterization, investigation and understanding of the physical and chemical prochesses which determine the performance of the different process units.

The thesis should preferably be within one of the following research areas:

Catalysis and petrochemistry
  • Catalytic and thermal cracking of hydrocarbons
  • Processes that are based on synthesis gas (i.e., mixtures of CO and H2) as well as processes for direct conversion of natural gas
  • Processes for upgrading of oil fractions to fuel
  • Catalytic oxidation
  • Deactivation of catalysts
  • In the field of heterogeneous catalysis investiogations are performed on the pore size distribution and specific surface of solid catalysts. Relationships between structure and activity are studied. Adsorbed surface complexes are investigated in situ by use of FTIR. In cooperation with the Department of Physical Electronics and Department of Physics surface spectroscopic methods like ESCA (XPS), AES, SIMS and STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscopy) are applied to study heterogeneous catalysts.
  • Reseach fields within the field of homogeneous catalysis comprise among other things studies and applications of metal organic compounds. Furthermore, the effect of solvents on the reaction rates is investigated.
Polymer chemistry and technology
  • Emulsions-, suspensions- and dispersion polymerization, - with kinetic and microscopic investigations of particle formation and distribution, characterization of morphology and colloide chemical properties.
  • Monodisperse polymer particles, - production, characterization and applications.
  • Binding agent dispersions, production and application properties.
  • Step-polymerization, - basically amino- and phenol resins as well as alcyd resins.
  • Emulsions and dispersions, - production and characterization.
  • Polymerization of olefines with metalorganic catalysis, - in particular from ethen and propene by use of metallocen catalysts. Kinetics and characterization by use of homo- and co-polymerization.

Process- system technology
  • Modeling, simulation, design and optimal operation of process units and plants.
  • Effective thermodynamic models
  • Process control and plantwide control, for example of distillation columns, reactors, integrated processes and batch processes.
  • Control theories which are particularly useful for process control.
  • System biology
Reactor Technology
  • Development of mathematical models, numerical solution methods and software (e.g., super computing) for detailed analysis of the interaction between flow variables, reaction kinetics, and heat- and mass transfer in chemical reactors and other process units.

  • Application of conventional reactor models for simulation, optimization and design of different reactor types.

  • Novel design of processes for synthesis gas production, methanol synthesis, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, etc.

  • Development of measuring equipment and experimental analysis of flow and transport processes in multiphase reacting systems.

  • General reactor technology.
    - Operation and control of chemical process plants
    - Systematic design of reactor- and process systems.

  • Oil and gas processing
  • CO2 gas cleaning
  • Processes for production of fuel from alternative feed stock like bio mass.
Separation and environmental technology
  • Prarticle design
    - In industrial crystalization
    - In production of nano particles
  • Scaling and precipitation of particles in oil- and gas processing unts.
  • Solid/liquid separation
  • Basic mechanisms for nucleation, crystal growth and agglomeration.
  • Gas cleaning with particular focus on the use of membranes (e.g., CO2, H2, etc)
  • Development of membrane materials (for gas-liquid).
  • Bio processes (bio gas, bio diesel, ethanol)
  • Process design with integrated membraneseparation, simulations.
Pulp and paper technology
  • Characterization of reactions and reaction products related to environmental frendly processes.
  • Modified boiling – and bleach processes for paper mass.
  • Theoretical work related to paper formation and paper structures.
  • Theoretical and experimental work on paper fiber properties and the process variables influence upon them.
  • Characterization of the paper surface and cross-sectional structure.
  • Characterization and modeling of technological subprocesses.

Illustrasjonsbilde/FOTO

NTNU
Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering

Visiting address:
Sem Sælandsvei 4

Postal address:
Department of Chemical Engineering
NTNU
7491 Trondheim

E- mail: postmottak@chemeng.ntnu.no

Telephone: +47 73 59 40 30

Telefax: +47 73 59 40 80