Modeling and Control of a Titania Aerosol Reactor

We focus on modeling and control of an aerosol flow reactor used to produce titania powder. We initially present a detailed population balance model for the process which accounts for simultaneous nucleation, Brownian and shearinduced coagulation, and convective transport and describe the spatio-temporal evolution of the aerosol volume distribution. Then, under the assumption of lognormal aerosol volume distribution, the method of moments is employed for the derivation of a model that describes the evolution of the three leading moments of the volume distribution. The moment model, together with the fundamental model that describes the temperature in the reactor and concentrations of the gas-phase species, are subsequently used to synthesize a nonlinear output feedback controller which manipulates the temperature of the reactor wall to achieve an aerosol size distribution in the outlet of the reactor with desired geometric average particle diameter. The nonlinear controller is successfully implemented on the process model and is shown to deal effectively with external disturbances.