EDITORIAL pubs.acs.org/IECR
Preface to the 2010 International-Mexican Congress on Chemical Reaction Engineering (IMCCRE 2010)
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hemical reaction engineering takes a key position in the activities of the (petro)chemical and refining sector and, consequently, also in the curriculum of the chemical engineering departments of universities. The chemical transformation itself is almost always a complex operation in which conversions and selectivities must satisfy production, economic, environmental, and safety constraints and for which skillfully designed reactors, which often implement complex flow patterns and innovative heat-exchange schemes, are essential. The problems are particularly important with new processes, which often require an innovative approach in the modeling, simulation, optimization, and design: today’s industry sets demanding objectives to new processes and units. Achieving these requires more than “art” and is possible only through a thorough knowledge of the multiple phenomena taking place in the reactor. Preparing the new generations of engineers for these challenges is the task of the universities, but more is required to keep the engineers and scientists up to date in our competitive world. Scientific meetings that bring together those working out the fundamental aspects and those dealing with the practical applications and realizations will continue to be important forums for the progress of the profession. With this in mind, we organized the International-Mexican Congress on Chemical Reaction Engineering (IMCCRE) in the City of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico June 6-10, 2010. IMCCRE was also a perfect opportunity for the international chemical engineering community to celebrate Professor Gilbert F. Froment for his seminal contributions to the theory and practice of chemical reaction engineering. Professor Froment studied chemical engineering at the University of Gent, Belgium, and received his Ph.D. in 1957. After postdoc assignments in Germany and the United States, he returned to the University of Gent, where he became an Associate Professor in 1961 and a Full Professor in 1968. Simultaneously, he founded the “Laboratorium voor Petrochemische Techniek” (LPT), which has become world renown for the fundamental approach of industrially relevant problems and the numerous sophisticated experimental setups specifically designed and constructed in the laboratory’s own work shop. After retiring from the University of Gent, Professor Froment joined the Chemical Engineering Department of Texas A&M University in 1998, where he is still active. In 1970, Professor Froment authored, with K. B. Bischoff, the first edition of his worldwide famous book, Chemical Reactor Analysis and Design; a second edition was published 20 years later in 1990, and the third edition was published (after another 20 years) in 2010. The book was also translated into Chinese in 1985. Professor Froment was innovative in many areas of chemical reaction engineering: among others, heat transfer in fixed-bed catalytic reactors, reactor modeling, kinetics of industrial processes, catalyst deactivation by coke formation, and thermal cracking for olefins production. A particular development, started in the late 1980s, was the single event concept for the modeling of the kinetics of processes involving multiple components and reactions r 2011 American Chemical Society
(among others, catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, methanol-to-olefins, and alkylation). It originated from his collaboration with the petroleum refining industry. The concept is exactly the opposite of the very simple modeling approach the industry was using to simulate the large-scale conversion of complex oil fractions into almost equally complex products that had to satisfy rigorous specifications. The single event approach is based on very fundamental principles, yet has led to process models that are presently used in industry; this contains a limited number of independent kinetic parameters, linked to a given catalyst, but is valid for widely different feed compositions. He has directed the work of some 70 Ph.D. students and published some 350 scientific papers in international journals. He has presented at more than 300 seminars in universities and at international symposia all over the world. He received the prestigious R. H. Wilhelm Award for Chemical Reaction Engineering from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) in 1978, the VillermauxMedal from the European Federation of Chemical Engineering in 1999, and the N. R. Amundson Award of ISCRE, Inc., in 2009. Professor Froment is a Doctor Honoris Causa of a couple of famous universities, a member of The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a member of the Belgian Academy of Science, and a member of the Belgian Overseas Academy. He has consulted intensively for the world-leading oil and (petro)chemical companies. The present special issue is a compilation of 38 selected full manuscripts that were presented during IMCCRE 2010 and deal with different aspects of chemical reaction engineering. We would like to acknowledge all the contributors and referees who carefully reviewed the manuscripts.
Professor Gilbert F. Froment with the IMCCRE 2010 organizers (Carolina Leyva and Jorge Ancheyta).
Jorge Ancheyta Instituto Mexicano del Petr oleo, Eje Central Lazaro Cardenas Norte 152, Col. San Bartolo Atepehuacan, Mexico City, 07730 MEXICO (
[email protected])
Special Issue: IMCCRE 2010 Received: December 15, 2010 Accepted: December 17, 2010 Published: February 23, 2011 2487
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie102510y | Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2011, 50, 2487–2487
