ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI (AUTh)

322 Pages·2011·4.13 MB·English

ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI (AUTh)
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
SECTION OF ANALYSIS, DESIGN AND CONTROL OF CHEMICAL
PROCESSES & PLANTS

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING AND SIMULATION
OF AN INDUSTRIAL α-OLEFINS CATALYTIC SLURRY PHASE
LOOP-REACTOR SERIES

Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Chemical Engineering
for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in Chemical Engineering

Vassileios Touloupides
Chemical Engineer

Thessaloniki, November 2010

Thessaloniki, November 22, 2010
© Βασίλειος Δ. Τουλουπίδης
© Α.Π.Θ.

MATHEMATICAL MODELLING AND SIMULATION
OF AN INDUSTRIAL α-OLEFINS CATALYTIC SLURRY PHASE
LOOP-REACTOR SERIES

‘Η έγκριση της παρούσης ∆ιδακτορικής ∆ιατριβής από το Τμήμα Χημικών Μηχανικών του
Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης δεν υποδηλώνει αποδοχή των γνωµών του
συγγραφέως’ (Ν. 5343/1932, άρθρο 202, παρ. 2)
Acknowledgements
I am heartily thankful to my supervisor, Professor C.
Kiparissides for giving me the chance to graduate from his
excellent research group. His encouragement, guidance and
support from the initial to the final level, enabled me to develop
a better understanding on chemical engineering and

polymerization process modelling.
The present work is a part of two industrial projects
entitled ‘Mathematical Modelling of Industrial Polyethylene
Slurry Loop Reactos(s) for Ziegler-Natta Catalysts’ and ‘Multi-
scale Multi-zone Mathematical Modelling of Industrial
Polyethylene Slurry Loop Reactor(s) for Ziegler–Natta
Catalysts’. I gratefully acknowledge the technical support and
financial assistance of Total Petrochemicals Research at Feluy

(TPRF), Belgium. More specifically, I would like to thank Denis
Mignon, Pierre Van Grambezen and Alvaro Fernandez for our
helpful discussions throughout this research project.
Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the financial
support of Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute/
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CPERI/ CERTH)
throughout all five-year period of my PhD research.

I would also like to thank all my fellow colleagues at the
Laboratory of Polymer Reaction Engineering of CPERI/
CERTH. More specifically, I would like to thank Dr. Pladis and
Dr. Kanellopoulos for their invaluable help throughout this
research project.
Last but not least, I would like to thank, my mother

Aphrodite and my sister Zina.

Στον παππού μου Νίκο και τη γιαγιά μου Ζηνοβία.

‘If you don't do the best you can with what you happen to have,
you'll never do the best you might have done with what you should have had’
Aris Rutherford*

*Author’s note: If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well.