Multiscale Modeling and Optimization of Product and Process Systems: Taking Sustainability into Account

Nowadays, chemical engineers are facing the grand challenge of pursuing sustainable manufacturing. To address this challenge, we believe that the integration of process engineering and product engineering is the key. The principal idea is to achieve exceptional system performance (quantified based on the triple-bottom-line concept) through characterization and hence optimization of the integrated system of the raw material, processing and product that covers a wide range of length and time scales. In this talk, our past and on-going efforts in the areas of automotive and aircraft coatings, heat exchanger fouling, and especially, spray drying for dairy powder production will be introduced in detail to demonstrate the necessity and predictive power of multiscale modeling and simulation. Techniques ranging from atomistic modeling approaches, to coarse-grained mesoscopic methods, up to classical continuum methodologies have been coupled, which greatly facilitates experimentalists in materials innovation, process optimization, and knowledge discovery toward sustainable objectives.