BUTiH implements the research project AITEKIN

On 27-28th January 2006 in Poznań, there has been a meeting of participants of the international research project AITEKIN, which aims at joining the techniques and software of modern reactors for the kinetic processes analysis in the chemical industry. The host of the meeting was the Polish participant of the project - BUTiH.

The idea of undertaking AITEKIN project is connected with the role of reactors as the basic elements of productive installations, comprising also apparatus and devices for the other elementary operations. For calculations and processes optimization, both in steady states and activated complexes, there are now available simulator programs. There programs support the reactors' calculations in the limited degree, since the user has to enter the most important elements of the chemical reactions' description. This requires specialist knowledge and experience, and sometimes also acquiring the evidence, what is connected with considerable labour demand and great costs. These difficulties may be eased taking advantage of modern tools of reactions kinetics' identification and control of their course. One of such tools is the tubular reactor with the equipment, which enables carrying on the kinetic experiments at the variable temperature and variable substrate mass flux (TSR - Temperature Scanning Reactor, the originator and author of the patents on this field is Bogdan Wojciechowski, the retired professor of the Canadian Queens University, at present residing in USA). The necessary complement of TSR is the software for experimental data processing. This software may additionally, using the methods of artificial intelligence, support the identification of the reactions' mechanism and completing the data for designing the industrial version of the reactor.

The aim of the AITEKIN project is a practical realization of the presented idea. The main stages of functioning consist in elaboration, starting up and testing the laboratory tubular reactor for kinetic experiments by variable temperature and variable stream of substrate mass, program for automatic generating of reaction scheme using graph theory and option of using expert knowledge to simplify the scheme, translating program which changes the symbolic notation of chemical reactions into algebraic notation needed for further operation of data processing, a program for identification of reaction scheme on the basis on measure data processing obtained from kinetic experiments together with analysis of sensibility and program generating simulation model of industry reactor working, for use in simulation of production process.

The AITEKIN project is organized according model of Cooperative Research Project and financed from resources of 6th Frame Program of European Union. The works began in 2004 and will be finished in May 2006. Besides BUTiH, the partners of the executive consortium, coordinated by Technosind company (Italy) are:
Companies Polimeri Europa (Italy), University of Manchester (Great Britain) and British Department of a known company UOP (USA) and EVECO Brno (Czech Republic), Firth Executive (Great Britain) and Nova Systems Roma (Italy). Scientific consultations for BUTiH are provided by CERED Center of Excellence in School of Technology and Social Sciences of Warsaw University of Technology in Plock. Further information regarding the project are available on the website http://www.cpi.umist.ac.uk/aitekin