Recent Research activities:

My research activities fall in the field of Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics and its applications. These can be classified in the following main topics:

Prediction of thermodynamic properties of natural gas mixtures and simulation of natural gas processes

• Development of a reliable thermodynamic model able to accurately predict the dew points of natural gas mixtures. To this purpose the so-called UMR-PRU is used, which gives much better dew point predictions than other thermodynamic models commonly employed by the gas industry such as cubic EoS and PC-SAFT.
• Development of thermodynamic models able to accurately predict the PVT behavior of reservoir fluids and natural gas mixtures.
• Development of simple and reliable methods for the characterization of the heavy end (C7+) fraction of the natural gas.
• Phase and chemical equilibrium of mercury in natural gas mixtures.
• Simulation of natural gas processes.

Experimental measurements and modelling of phase equilibria of mixtures containing ionic liquids (ILs)

• Use of ILs as alternative solvents for industrial applications
• Use of ILs as alternative solvents in biotechnology
• Synthesis and characterization of recyclable and biodegradable task-specific ILs
• Experimental measurements and modelling of phase equilibrium in mixtures containing ILs.

Modelling of phase equilibria of pure compounds and mixtures

• Development of models for the prediction of pure compound properties such as boiling poits, critical properties, vapor pressures, liquid densities, heat capacities etc.
• Equations of State (EoS) with emphasis given to the type of mixing rules that combine equations of state with Gibbs free energy models, resulting to the so-called EoS/G^E models.
• Modelling of complex mixtures such as those containing hydrogen bonding compounds with the Cubic-Plus Association (CPA) EoS.

Experimental measurements and modelling of supercritical fluids

• Recovery of high added value bio-active compounds, e.g. essential oils and antioxidants, from natural sources with Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE).
• Modelling and optimization of the SFE process.
• Use of supercritical CO₂ for fine particle production.
• Modelling of phase equilibria of SCCO₂ mixtures.

Applications of Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

• Biotechnology: prediction of reaction equilibrium constants and conversions in enzyme-catalyzed reactions, prediction of water activities in enzymatic reactions in non-aqueous media (organic solvents, ILs, SCCO₂)

• Environmental Engineering: prediction of thermodynamic properties of organic pollutants (octanol-water partition coefficients, solubilities in water, Henry's law coefficients, etc.), prediction of the fate of inorganic and organic pollutants in the various environmental compartments (water, aquatic biota, air, soil, sediment).

• Energy with emphasis to thermal treatment of wastes with energy recovery: Energy and exergy analysis of the plasma gasification process.