Nat. Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos"

Introduction

National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos" (NCSRD) is a specialized centre for the structural characterisation of both porous materials and membranes. The Membranes for Environmental Separations Laboratory (MESL) group has been in the forefront of experimental techniques and theories aimed at understanding and modelling porous media (stochastic or process based digital reconstruction techniques), adsorption (by Simulated Annealing, Lattice Gas, Density Functional Theory, Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics), and permeability (by network, random packing, continuum approaches to heat, mass and momentum transfer as well as random walk techniques).

The competences

The MESL group has permanent staff of 12 researchers and 13 Ph.D. graduate students and has been in the forefront of developing innovative combinations of in-situ and experimental techniques aiming at the monitoring and controlling the evolution of nanostructure during their synthesis and their applications. The activities include the preparation of novel hollow fiber carbon membranes, double layer polymeric hollow fiber membranes, CVD ceramic, carbon nanotubes, ionic liquids and zeolitic membranes. The second main activity relevant to the project focuses on the development of innovative combinations of techniques for the characterization of membranes and evaluation of performance for the separation of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide/carbon monoxide, olefin/paraffin , water and hydrocarbons.

The role in NEXT-GTL

NCSRD will be the reference fundamental groups for the preparation and testing of the materials for CO₂ separation (Task 1.4) both on a lab-scale and on a larger scale. Furthermore NCSRD is leader of WP 5 Dissemination and training/education and the corresponding tasks 5.1 and 5.3.

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