Reactors are wildly used in many industrial applications, not only in chemicals, petrochemicals, oil and gas industries, but also, in polymers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, food, power plant, engines, and so on. Most of the flows in reactors are multiphase, such as gas-solid flows in FCC fluidized beds, liquid-solid flow in polymerization loop reactors, gas-liquid flow in the F-T bubble columns, the gas-liquid-solid flows in bioreactors, and gas-solid flows in the biomass pyrolyzer and upgrader.

In multiphase reactors, multiphase flows, heat mass transfer, and reaction are coupled. Also, the flow is dynamic with multi-time and length scales. The Gao research group combines advanced experimental measurements and accurate and effective CFD models to design, optimize, and scale up multi-phase reactors for different industrial applications.

The main research area of the group includes

·       Chemical reactor engineering and catalytic reactor engineering

·       Solid fuel (biomass, coal, plastic, solid waste, etc.) thermochemical conversion technology

·       Multiphase flow science and multi-scale simulation, Fluidization and particle technology

·       Biomass based novel materials

·       Microalgae biotechnology and clean energy technology

·       Machine learning and artificial intelligence

·       High-performance computing and software development