The research at the ULg’s Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, based on the study of substance flows in polyphasic systems aimed at developing and optimizing the reduction of volatile organic compounds, aerosols and acidifying substances, three major sources of air pollution which can have an impact on human health. The originality of the research carried out at the LCG rests on the use and development of non destructive testing technologies which enable the visualization of the phenomena taking place within various pieces of equipment. The LCG has in particular available to it tomography and X ray microtomography instruments.

Protecting the environment has assuredly become one of the major issues of this 21st century. For several years now the Laboratory of Chemical Engineering at the University of Liège has been participating in many projects aiming at developing and optimizing the reduction of three major sources of air pollution which could have certain effects on human health: volatile organic compounds, aerosols made up of very airborne tiny particles (with a diameter of between 0.01 and 10 microns)and acidifying substances. ‘The techniques we are studying,’ explains Professor Michel Crine, the director of the laboratory of chemical engineering, ‘consist in capturing pollutants in porous materials, such as filters or adsorbents. Our work bears on both the experimental follow-up and the digital modeling of these techniques.’ Several projects and studies have been carried out on this subject by the LCG’s researchers. Amongst the most recent, one looks at the dynamic behaviour of activated carbon filters (1) ; another aims at looking at the mechanisms of clogging up and technologies aimed at slowing its development, such as filter irrigation (2). Finally, the third is historically the oldest and aims at studying the mechanisms of bringing into contact the fluids in a gas cleaning column (3).

(1) Léonard A., Wullens H., Blacher S., Marchot P., Toye D., Crine,M., Lodewyckx P., In situ observation of wall effects in activated carbon filters by x-ray microtomography, Sep. Pur. Technol. 64(1), 127-130 (2008).
(2) Lecocq R., Calvo S. Saroha A., Toye D., Crine M., Marchot P., Utilisation d’un modèle heuristique simple dans l’étude de la capture d’aérosols, Proceedings of SFGP 2007 - 11th Congrès de la Société Française de Génie des Procédés, Saint-Etienne, France, 9-11 october 2007.
(3) Marchot P., Toye D., Pelsser A. M., Crine M., L'Homme G., Olujic Z., Liquid distribution images on structured packing by X-ray computed tomography, AIChE Journal, 47(6), 1471-1476 (2001).