Recent results on a numerical simulation of fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer during SiC crystal growth by TSSG method are introduced as an example of chemical engineering process. It was found that Marangoni convection is dominant in the liquid phase and the three-dimentional numerical simulation result well explains the fluid flow in a water film suspended in a ring wire under the microgravity condition.

To understand the detail structure of the pulverized coal flame, it is necessary to apply the carefully controlled optical diagnostics because the significant signal disturbance from the fuel particles would reduce the accuracy of data. In this paper, the highlight results obtained by applying shadow Doppler particle analyzer (SDPA) and laser induced incandescence (LII) and time-resolved LII (TiRe-LII) to the pulverized coal flame were summarized.

Specific heat capacity is one of the most important thermodynamic properties for materials. A differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) is popular as the equipment with which the specific heat capacity can be measured conveniently, but it isn’t confirmed whether this can have an accurate measurement for all materials.

In recent years, development of a high performance material for the efficient heat utilization, for example low thermal conductivity materials, is focused. We prepared thermal insulation materials which was made from two kinds of fumed silica nanoparticles, glass fiber and SiC powder, and tried to measure the specific heat capacity by a power-compensated DSC. Furthermore, each material was measured independently, and the specific heat capacity of the thermal insulation materials was estimated by the constitution ratio. We found the deviation of the thermal insulation materials and the estimated value was within 6%. This suggests that Neumann Kopp’s law is formed even for the thermal insulation materials.

Hydrophilic nanoporous materials have extremely low thermal conductivities ranging from 0.02 to 0.05 W/(m·K) in the temperature range from room temperature to 800°C. However, the effect of water absorbed in the specimen on the thermal conductivity has not almost been investigated under 100°C. Therefore, we have made an new apparatus, and have measured thermal conductivities of the nanoporous materials, which were made of fumed silica, in the temperature range from about 30°C to 80°C. The result of the measurements has proved that a cusp wave profile, which appears as the peak value at about 100°C for the relationship between the thermal conductivity and the mean temperature of the specimen, was observed due to the evaporation of water around 100°C. Furthermore, it was suggested that the water absorbed in the material lowered the efficiency of scattering on the thermal radiation.

The fluidized bed has features such as uniform operation and excellent heat transfer characteristics. However, when the relative humidity of fluidizing gas is high, adhesion occurs on the particle surface. This study examines the influence of adhesion on fluidization, by adjusting the adhesion on the surface of particles by controlling the air relative humidity sent in the fluidized bed systematically. In addition, the amount of water vapor accumulation in the bed was calculated from the relative humidity changes of the gas in the fluidized bed to predict how much adhesion occur in the fluidized bed.

From experimental results, the amount of water vapor accumulation in the fluidized bed was varied depending on measurement conditions. At low relative humidity, the influence of adhesion is small, and at high relative humidity, influence of adhesion on fluidization becomes stronger, causing channeling. It was suggested that it is possible to evaluate the fluidity of powder by the amount of water vapor accumulation.

A cobalt blue pigment having a core/shell structure was synthesized by solid phase synthesis of coated particles having Co(OH)₂ particles adhered onto Al₂O₃ particles. In this research, the effect of mixing conditions on the color tone of synthesized pigment was investigated. As a result, it was found that the mixing time greatly affected the amount of adhered Co source particles, and the pressing force during mixing affected inhomogeneity of adhered amount of Co source particle on Al source particle surface. However, it was found that the inhomogeneity of the amount of Co source particles is small as the influence on the color tone of the calcinated product by diffusing onto the alumina surface of Co ions during calcination at high temperature. In addition, when the mixing conditions were not appropriate and the coating amount of the Co source particles on the Al source particles was small, the lightness of the product was high and the chroma was low. One reason for this is considered to be a decrease in the shell thickness generated by the decrease in the amount of Co source particles deposited. It was also suggested that the formation of black tri-cobalt tetroxide, which is an unreacted Co source not adhering to the Al source particles, is also the reason of the decrease of chroma of the product.