Systems and methods conducive to the formation of one or more alkene hydrocarbons using a methane source and an oxidant in an oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) reaction are provided. One or more vessels each containing one or more catalyst beds containing one or more catalysts each having similar or differing chemical composition or physical form may be used. The one or more catalyst beds may be operated under a variety of conditions. At least a portion of the catalyst beds may be operated under substantially adiabatic conditions. At least a portion of the catalyst beds may be operated under substantially isothermal conditions.

A method of forming a ceramic-metal composite part is described herein. The method includes maintaining molten metal in an interior of a housing in a liquefied state, the interior including a first chamber, a second chamber, and a port defined therebetween. The method further includes sealing the port such that the molten metal in the first chamber is maintained at a first liquid level, suspending a part at a height within the first chamber above the first liquid level, forming a pressure differential between the first chamber and the second chamber, unsealing the port such that molten metal from the second chamber flows into the first chamber, and resealing the port when the molten metal in the first chamber reaches a second liquid level such that the ceramic part is submerged in the molten metal.

Devices and methods for controlling the properties of chemical species during time-dependent processes. A device includes a reactor for containing one or more chemical species of a time-dependent process, an extraction pump for automatically and continuously extracting an amount of the one or more chemical species from the reactor, one or more detectors for measuring property changes of the one or more extracted chemical species and generating a continuous stream of data related to the one or more property changes to the one or more chemical species during a time interval, and a process controller configured to fit the continuous stream of data to a mathematical function to predict one or more properties of the one or more chemical species at a future time point and make one or more process decisions based on the prediction of one or more properties at the future time point.

The present teachings relate to a method for monitoring a production process for manufacturing a chemical product at an industrial plant, the method comprising: providing an up-stream object identifier comprising input material data, receiving real-time process data from one or more of the equipment zones; determining a subset of the real-time process data based on the upstream object identifier and a zone presence signal; computing at least one zone-specific performance parameter of the chemical product related to the up-stream object identifier based on the subset of the real-time process data and historical data; appending, to the upstream object identifier, the at least one zone-specific performance parameter. The present teachings also relate to a system for monitoring a production process, a dataset, use, a method for generating the dataset and a software program for the same.

One embodiment provides a chemical reactor, which can comprise a substrate for facilitating chemical reactions occurring at triple-phase boundaries. One possible substrate may further comprise a set of dynamically controllable sites and/or pixels upon which control signals may affect a desired formation of gas bubbles over an active catalytic (or other desired) solid surface in a liquid flowwherein a chemical reaction in two or more phase boundaries may occur. In yet another embodiment, a control algorithm may send control signals to controllable sites/pixels to maximize the operation of the reactor according to a desired metric (e.g., product formation) that may input a set of sensor data to affect its control.

Techniques regarding the synthesis of polyesters and/or polycarbonates through one or more ring-opening polymerizations conducted within a flow reactor and facilitated by a urea anion catalyst and/or a thiourea catalyst are provided. For example, one or more embodiments can comprise a method, which can comprise polymerizing, via a ring-opening polymerization within a flow reactor, a cyclic monomer in the presence an organocatalyst comprising a urea anion.

Devices and methods for determining the cumulative distribution of a polymer property in a reactor without physical separation of reaction subcomponents. The device includes a means of measuring an instantaneous property of the polymers being produced in a reaction vessel a plurality of times during a polymerization reaction as well as a means of determining the corresponding change in polymer concentration in the reaction vessel between measurements of the instantaneous polymer property. The device also includes a means of computing a statistical distribution appropriate to the polymer characteristic and applying the statistical distribution to a recently measured instantaneous value of the polymer property so as to have an instantaneous distribution of the polymer property and a means of adding together the instantaneous distributions of the polymer property in order to obtain the cumulative distribution of the polymer property in the reactor.

A multi-tubular chemical reactor includes an igniter for the initiation of gas phase exothermic reaction within the gas phase reaction zones of the tubular reactor units.

An apparatus for controlling flow of a material includes an inlet for receiving the material from a source, and a seal mechanism connected to the inlet, the seal mechanism having a fluidizing bed configured to receive the material from the inlet, a first discharge passageway and a second discharge passageway. The fluidizing bed includes a first transport zone associated with the first discharge passageway and a second transport zone associated with the second discharge passageway, wherein the first and second transport zones are configured to receive transport gas from a transport gas source. The transport gas is controllable to selectively divert a flow of the material into the first discharge passageway and the second discharge passageway.

A multi-tubular chemical reactor (400) includes an igniter (435) for the initiation of gas phase exothermic reaction within the gas phase reaction zones (409) of the tubular reactor units (408). A method of carrying out a gas phase exothermic reaction within the multi-tubular chemical reactor comprising: introducing gaseous reactants into a tubular reactor unit (408); initiating with radiant heat an exothermic reaction of the gaseous reactants within the reactor unit; and transferring heat produced by the exothermic reaction occurring within the gas phase reaction zone of the reactor unit to the gas phase reaction zone of one or more adjacent reactor units (408), thereby initiating an exothermic reaction within at least one adjacent reactor unit (408) until in such manner an exothermic reaction has been initiated in each of the plurality of spaced-apart reactor units (408).