"Computational Fluid Dynamics and Reaction Engineering at WPI" - "Modeling reactive transport by Random Walk simulation"

Two seminars with Prof. Anthony Dixon (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA) and Prof. Amir Paster (Tel Aviv University, Israel) - A joint DIATI-DISAT event

Prof. Anthony Dixon - "Computational Fluid Dynamics and Reaction Engineering at WPI”
ABSTRACT - This presentation will mention briefly some of our past projects in my group and go into some detail on two of the more recent ones on CFD. Following an introduction to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and our research group, some of the research projects currently being carried out by the group will be described briefly. These include detailed 3D CFD simulation of fixed beds, incorporation of microkinetics into CFD and in more detail, the generation of random packed beds of complex particle shapes and their use in fixed bed CFD simulations. A second main area that will be discussed is a combined CFD and experimental study of a composite Pd-based multi-tube membrane module, focusing on ethanol steam reforming for H 2 in a large-scale catalytic membrane reactor. Finally we shall mention our industry-sponsored CFD modeling of a Midrex furnace reformer.
CV - Anthony Dixon joined the Chemical Engineering (CHE) faculty of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in 1980 after obtaining his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Edinburgh, and spending two years as an Assistant Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests lie in chemical reaction engineering, including inorganic membrane reactors, heat transfer in chemical reactors, mathematical modeling and simulation, computational fluid dynamics and diffusion in porous catalysts. He has contributed research in recent years in particular on CFD in fixed bed reactors, and has co-authored over 100 journal papers in this and other reaction engineering areas. He has received several awards for his educational work and research, including the 2009 WPI Board of Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Scholarship, and the 2001 William H. Corcoran Award for best paper appearing in Chemical Engineering Education, and is a Fellow of AIChE. He is currently Executive Editor for kinetics, catalysis and reaction engineering for Chemical Engineering Science, is on the advisory board for Advances in Chemical Engineering, serving as editor for two volumes to date and is a member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Chemical Reactor Engineering.

Prof. Amir Paster - "Modeling reactive transport by Random Walk simulation"
ABSTRACT - Developing methods for incorporating complex reactions in Random Walk simulations has been the focus of extensive research in the last few years. In this talk I will review these developments and focus on (1) 2nd order reaction kinetics, e.g. A+B->C [Paster et al. 2013, 2014, 2015]., and (2) heterogeneous reaction, i.e., reactive boundary condition [Boccardo et al, in prep.]. I will also show an application for the case of photo-catalytic reaction used to remove contaminant from water, and how the RW model enables to optimize the reactor.
CV - Research Interests: Transport in Porous Media, Groundwater Remediation, Random Walk (Particle Tracking) Simulations
EDUCATION
1997-2001 Faculty of Agriculture, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
B.Sc. Environmental Engineering, Summa cum laude
2001-2004 School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University
M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, Magna cum laude
2004-2008 School of Mechanical Engineering, Tel Aviv University
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), with Distinction
POSITIONS
2008 - 2011 LDD Advanced Technologies, Israel
Groundwater Hydrologist and Project Manager.
2011-2013 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences,
University of Notre Dame, IN, USA
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
2013- School of Mech. Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University
Senior Lecturer
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Ding, D., Benson, D. A., Paster, A., and Bolster, D., Modeling bimolecular reactions and transport in porous media via particle tracking, Advances in Water Resources, 2013.
Paster, A., Bolster, D. and Benson, D.A., Particle tracking and the diffusion-reaction equation, Water Resources Research, 2013.
Benson, D.A., Bolster, D., and Paster, A., Communication: A full solution of the annihilation reaction A+B→0 based on time subordination, J. of Chemical Physics, 2013.
Schneider, B., Paster, A., and Bolster, D., A numerical investigation of mixing and spreading across an angled discontinuity, Advances in Water Resources, 2013.
Paster, A., Bolster, D. and Benson, D.A., Connecting the Dots: Semi-Analytical and Random Walk Numerical Solutions of the Diffusion-Reaction Equation with Stochastic Initial Conditions, Journal of Computational Physics, 2014.
Paster, A., Aquino, T. and Bolster, D., Incomplete mixing and reactions in laminar shear flow, Physical Review E, 2015.
Bolster, D., Paster, A. and Benson, D.A., A Particle-Number Conserving Lagrangian Method for Mixing-Driven Reactive Transport, Water Resources Research, 2016
Ben Neriah, A., and Paster, A., Effect of Temporal Changes in Air Injection Rate on Air Sparging Performance Groundwater Remediation, Groundwater, 2016
Moreno, Z., and Paster, A., Prediction of Remediation of a Heterogeneous Aquifer: A Case Study, Groundwater , 2017