Adsorption, Ion Exchange And Catalysis : Design of Operations And Environmental Applications

Adsorption, Ion Exchange and Catalysis is essentially a mixture of environmental science and chemical reactor engineering. More specifically, three important heterogeneous processes, namely, adsorption, ion exchange and catalysis, are analysed, from fundamental kinetics to reactor design with emphasis on their environmental applications. In Chapter 1, the subject of air and water pollution is dealt with. Data about pollutants and emission sources are given and the treatment methods are shortly presented. In Chapter 2, the very basics and historical development of adsorption, ion exchange and catalysis are presented as well as their environmental applications. Chapter 3 is devoted to heterogeneous processes and reactor analysis. All types of reactors are described in depth and reactor modelling, hydraulics and mass/heat transfer phenomena are examined for each type of reactor. Chapters 4 and 5 are dedicated to adsorption & ion exchange and catalysis, respectively. The basic principles are presented including kinetics, equilibrium, mass/heat transfer phenomena as well as the analytical solutions of the reactor models presented in Chapter 3. In the sixth chapter, the subject of scale up is approached. The two Annexes at the end of the book contain physical properties of substances of environmental interest as well as unit conversion tables. Finally, nearly all the examples contained are based on real experimental data found in literature with environmental interest. Most of the examples consider all aspects of operation design – kinetics, hydraulics and mass transfer.

* Provides basic knowledge of major environmental problems and connects them to chemical engineering

Dr. Stavros G. Poulopoulos has studied Chemical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (Greece). He holds M.Sc. in Process Analysis and Plant Design and a second M.Sc. in the interdisciplinary field of Environment and Development. He conducted his Ph.D. research in the field of environmental protection. Specifically, his Thesis was entitled “Catalytic Oxidation of Oxygenated Organic Compounds in Exhaust Emissions”. Subsequently, he conducted post-doc research for three years on the development of combined biological and chemical methods for the treatment of highly toxic wastewaters. He has conducted research for over 15 years on the treatment of gaseous emissions and toxic wastewaters. His work as an author includes more than 70 publications in the fields of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Science & Technology, which resulted in more than 700 citations. Moreover, he has co-authored one book on Adsorption, Ion Exchange and Catalysis (Elsevier) and has published also a chapter on the Gaseous Emissions and Pollution Prevention from the Incineration of Sewage Sludge (Nova). He has been acting as a reviewer for 22 international scientific journals. Besides his academic activities, he has offered his services as environmental specialist at the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks since 2007 and has cooperated with various companies. He has been working as an Associate Professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of Kazakh-British Technical University since 2013, teaching courses at the core of chemical engineering such as Chemical Reaction Engineering, Momentum Transfer, Heat & Mass Transfer, Plant and Processes Design, Chemical Engineering Lab., and Design of Chemical Utilities, at the undergraduate and master level. He is the editor along with Dr. Inglezakis of a new book entitled “Environment and Development. Basic Principles, Human Activities, and Environmental Implications.” published by Elsevier in May 2016. The publication of this book has been a dream to come true for Dr. Poulopoulos.

Vassilis J. Inglezakis is a Reader at the Department of Chemical & Process Engineering, University of Strathclyde, UK. He graduated from the Chemical Engineering Department of the National Technical University of Greece in 1996 and received his PhD in 2002. His area of research is in the broader area of Environmental Chemical Engineering, covering water/wastewater treatment, adsorption processes, porous materials and nanocomposites, capture and valorization of CO2, soil pollution and solid waste management. Since 2017, he has extended his research on applying chemical engineering principles to extraterrestrial environments, with a particular interest in Mars. He has rich academic output with more than 140 Journal papers and authored 2 books published with Elsevier. His work has received more than 6,000 citations (Scopus) and has an h-index of 42. He was listed in the "World Ranking of Top 2% Scientists in 2022" Stanford University database figuring at the top 0.78% of all scientists considered. Besides academia, he has extensive experience as a consultant engineer in the private sector participating in more than 40 projects in several countries. He was appointed as Pre-Accession Advisor at the Ministry of Environment of Slovakia (2004-2005) and Romania (2006-2007) for the preparations of the countries for EU membership. He has been project proposals evaluator for the European Commission and several other educational bodies in the UK, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, Greece, Thailand, and Chile. He has solid experience in building experimental laboratories and facilities and he led the development of 31 teaching and research labs in the period of 2013-2016 in Kazakhstan. In 2016, he received an award from the Ministry of Education for distinguished contribution to the country’s education system. He has been teaching process and plant design using simulation in UG and MEng/MSc levels since 2015.