Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry – CHIS

In 2004 a special type of government funding gave birth to the Industrial Research Fund (IOF – Industrieel Onderzoeksfonds). This funding supports the IOF knowledge centers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in carrying out outstanding strategic research and further developing new application-oriented inventions with economic potential.

The first priority of the IOF funds is the further establishment of a portfolio of potentially applicable and transferable know-how with economic and societal value.

Keywords

Separation processes
adsorption
chromatography
industrial chemistry

Main objectives

CHIS is currently conducting both fundamental and applied research on two key separation technologies, adsorption and chromatography.

This research addresses all scales, ranging from the investigation of the processes at the molecular scale all the way up to the development of industrial scale production processes, always combining both theory and experiment and putting large emphasis on process modeling and separation. In separation technology CHIS takes a unique and leading position among the different chemical engineering groups in Flanders.

Separation processes are indispensable in the complete production and life cycle of any given chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnological or food product, and make up the majority of the processes run in any chemical production plant. With the growing interest in cleaner production processes, sustainable and rational use of raw materials and energy, CO2-emission reduction, a cleaner environment, better food quality, etc.., it can be foreseen that separation technologies (both on the large-scale production as well as on the analytical scale) will only become more and more important in the future.

Strategic and applied research

The two separation processes specifically targeted in the present project, i.e., adsorption and chromatography, are tightly related: the former being the key separation factor for the latter and the latter providing an important measurement technique to study the former.

Benefiting strongly from the creation of order and molecule-specific confinement on the nano-scale, a scale that can only recently be engineered, it is believed that the progress in the fields of adsorption and chromatography will continue to make large strides in the future, much more than will be the case for the already more mature separation processes such as distillation or filtration. The indispensability of both techniques in the pharmaceutical research, clinical diagnostics and the research in molecular biology and systems biology is another guarantee for a fruitful future for the research in these fields.

Potentially applicable and transferable know how with economic value

Consultancy & contract research in the field of adsorption
VIRKAT Institute Consultancy & contract research in the field of chromatography
Independent Column and Instrument Consumer Testing Facility

Equipment & Infrastructure

The CHIS group has been (and still is) developing high-throughput experimental techniques and devices to screen and evaluate adsorbents for industrial applications. A unique frontal analysis set-up allows measuring on 20 adsorption columns without user intervention. The equipment allows to work with supercritical fluids, at pressures up to 200 bar and temperatures to 400 °C i.e. conditions relevant to large scale industrial processes. This experimental set-up is ideally suited for the optimization of operation conditions in adsorption processes, but also for the screening of new materials for their potential to achieve molecular separation. Another high-throughput frontal analysis setup and 2 robotic devices were developed to measure liquid phase adsorption isotherms in batch and continuous mode. Although many research groups have been developing high-throughput techniques in the field of heterogeneous catalysis, CHIS is the only group with dedicated high-throughput techniques for adsorptive separation processes worldwide.
With the development of a unique method to compare the quality of chromatographic columns, the CHIS group has a unique tool at its disposal to compare the quality of the different chromatographic columns and instruments that are currently being fabricated and marketed.

Research collaboration

Inter-university & research centers

Cooperation with COK (KULeuven)
LCT (UGent)
CMM (UGent)
EMAT (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Laboratory of Adsorption and Catalysis (Universiteit Antwerpen)

Exchange of data with:

University Pablo de Olavide (SP)
Northwestern University (USA)
Beijing University of Chemical Technology (China) in the field of Monte-Carlo Molecular Modelling of Adsorption

Collaboration with:

the Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University (Australia) in the field of CO2-separation (materials delivery).

Cooperation with:

IMEC (Integrated Systems Department)
VITO (Expertise Center Environment & Process Technology)
Mesa+ Institute for Nanotechnology - Universiteit Twente (The Netherlands) and Department of Chemistry – Kyoto University (Japan)

Networks

IAP-VI
SBO Nextchrom
FWO scientific community: "The active site: from catalyst to reactor".

Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Faculty of Engineering
Pleinlaan 2 – B-1050 Brussels – Belgium
[W] www.vub.ac.be/CHIS
[T] +32 (0)2 629 32 51
[F] +32 (0)2 629 32 48
Head: Gert DESMET
[E] gedesmet@vub.ac.be
Scientific contact: Joeri DENAYER
[E] joeri.denayer@vub.ac.be
GROUP CHIS: 29 people