The research activity concerns the modeling of processes and plants through numerical, phenomenological, and/or rigorous process simulation software models. The tools used range from plant knowledge to data identification and analysis techniques, environmental sustainability criteria, and numerical optimization methods. The use of such models is multifaceted and covers various aspects of the process industry (chemical, paper, energy); to this end, the research activity has addressed and/or is addressing:
- the formulation of optimal operational schedules for chemical plants and/or hybrid energy districts;
- the evaluation and prediction of environmental impacts under varying operating conditions in geothermal plants;
- increasing the sustainability of incineration plants by formulating data-driven control strategies;
- identifying critical aspects of plants to indicate better control strategies;
- the formulation of problem-solving strategies for issues encountered in pilot plants (inorganic chemistry) and defining more efficient and sustainable process solutions through process simulation;
- the characterization of lithium battery recycling solutions to assess the feasibility of recovering critical materials with reduced environmental impact, and also evaluating large-scale economic effects.
The ultimate goal is therefore to develop process methodologies and models that can be useful not only for formulating optimal solutions from an economic point of view but also for evaluating environmental aspects and/or technical feasibility of new sustainable technologies. In particular, it is also intended to develop digital twin models that can serve as decision-support tools in the development of new low-TRL technologies. For a complete list of indexed works, please refer to the attached document.