| Office Location: |
Steinman Hall T - 316 |
| Phone: |
(212) 650-6679 |
| Fax: |
(212) 650-6686 |
| E-mail: |
rshinnar@ccny.cuny.edu |
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Education:
B.Sc. (Ch.E.), 1945., Technion, Israel; Dipl. Eng., 1947.
M.Sc. (Ch.E.), D.Eng.Sc., 1957, Columbia University; .
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Areas of Expertise:
Chemical reaction engineering control and process design; industrial economics; separations using critical mixtures.
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Current Research Interests:
Our unique research program, dedicated to the development of advanced design methods in chemical engineering and process design, aims to integrate the achievements of engineering science into modern design. the program has resulted in a series of papers that have been widely accepted by industry. At present the emphasis is in three directions: analysis of thermodynamic constraints in chemical reactor design and catalysis; development of methods for evaluating new technology and scoping new research ideas; comparative evaluation of coal gasification processes and reactors.
The emphasis in our program is to translate the results of modern chemical engineering, and especially reaction engineering, into advanced methods of design useful for the practicing chemical engineer. Thus, our work on the modeling of fluidized bed coal gasifiers is to show how one evaluates the design constraints and the economic potential of such a gasifier, using both thermodynamic analysis and a chemical reactor model. We also investigated how modeling is useful for outlining the direction further research and development must take to lead to better gasifiers. Our present work focuses on the design of control systems for complex chemical reactors and processes.
Research in industrial economics deals with analyzing the economic performance of the process industries. One of the major achievements of our program has been the development of a method that allows robust estimation of the actual return on investment of large industrial companies. Companies' estimates of the economic discounted cash flow return of different investments are important tools in the evaluation of new projects. However, until now, no method has been existed for evaluating a posteriori the actual average performance achieved by all investments. Our research results show a strong decline of the return on investment in U.S. industry in the last 20 years. Our current studies analyze the reason behind this decline for the process industry.
Another research area is in the development of a new class of solvents for separation processes based on partially miscible mixtures used near their critical point of miscibility. We have shown that such mixtures allow solvent extraction in systems that tend to form stable emulsions. Operating across a phase transition leads to accelerated coalescence.
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Current Professional Affiliations:
National Academy of Engineering, Member
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Selected Recent Publications:
Shinnar, R., F.J. Doyle III, H.M. Budman, and M. Morari " design Consideration for Tubular Reactors with Highly Exothermic Reactions," AIChE Journal, 38, 11 (1992)
Shinnar, R., "The future of Chemical Industry," ChemTech, 21, 58 (1991)
Shinnar, R. and G. Fortuna, " G Doesn't Grow on Trees, " ChemTech, 20, 700 (1990)
Shinnar, R., "The Partially Controlled Economy." ChemTech, 20, 280 and 354 (1990)
Avidan, A. and D. Shinnar, "Development of Catalytic Cracking Technology. A Lesson in Chemical Reactor Design." I&EC Research, 29 (1990)
Shinnar, R., and D. Rumschitzki, "Tracer Experiment in Heterogeneous Chemical Reaction Design," AIChE Journal, 35, 1651 (1989)
Shinnar, R., O. Dressler, C.D. Feng and A. Avidan, "Estimation of the Economic Rate of Return of Industrial Companies," The Journal of Business, 62,417 (1989)
Shinnar, R.," Thermodynamic Analysis in Chemical Process and Reactor Design," Chem. Eng. Sci., 43, 2303 (1988).
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