2009 R&D 100 Award - Thermophysical Properties Division

Six researchers from MML's Thermophysical Properties Division were recognized for their roles in a 2009 R&D 100 Award, as announced recently by R&D Magazine. The collaborative project with Aspen Technology, Inc. involved NIST Thermodynamics Research Center group leader Michael Frenkel, chemist Robert Chirico, physicist Chris Muzny, chemical engineer Eric Lemon, physicist Andrei Kazakov, and NIST associate Vladimir Diky. The annual award recognizes the 100 most technologically significant products introduced during the past year.  

The award recognizes a commercial process-design package from Aspen Tech that was combined with the NIST ThermoData Engine (TDE) to create a general-purpose process simulator that provides new tools to significantly increase the number and variety of chemical components that may be considered by the process design engineer, while dramatically reducing the time required for compilation and critical evaluation of component properties. The resulting award-winning product is used in a range of industries: chemicals, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, metal & mining, specialty chemicals, and petrochemicals.

The NIST ThermoData Engine, Standard Reference Databases 103a and b, combines an expert system to predict and evaluate data with a large electronic data archive. The TDE provides critically evaluated property data on demand for a wide range of organic compounds and with validated uncertainties. The extensive collaboration with Aspen Tech brings these data to a core user community, and helps engineers to rapidly develop accurate, high-fidelity chemical process models.