Nonlinear multifractional order systems in chemical engineering

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of fractional order systems applied to chemical engineering. ractional calculus is a branch of calculus which extends typical integer order operations like differentiation and integration to the real line and even the complex plane. Between applications developed using this tool there are two main arens of the engineering interest: modelling transport phenomena and control theory. Fundamental theory related to transport phenomena at the microescale is treated for complex media such as nanoparticle difusion in biological tissues, heat transfer in granular media and reological characterization of water-in-oil (NV/O) highly concentrated emulsions. Then, the focus is traspased to the macroscale for the study of reactor dynamics under nonideal mixng and flow conditions. Finally, the controller proposed by (Távazoei and Haeri, 2008) is used in order to switch between fractional order dynamics of a mixed reactor