Dr. Gerard Krooshof, DSM: “Software from CERE helps us improving sustainability, e.g. through better modelling of polymer solubility.”
Royal DSM has recently joined the CERE industry Consortium.
“We were attracted mainly by the high-quality software developed by CERE for various types of thermodynamic modelling, not least software based on PC-SAFT equations-of-state,” says Dr. Gerard Krooshof, Senior Scientist in thermodynamics and colloid modelling at DSM.
Headquartered in The Netherlands, DSM is a global science-based company in nutrition, health and sustainable living. In respect to CERE, mainly the polymer activities are in play. DSM develops polymers for special applications e.g. in the automotive industry, electronics, paint and ink. Here, factors such as durability and stability are always important.
“Besides the ongoing developments for these various tasks, a growing trend is to also focus on the environmental properties. DSM is highly focused on sustainability. This adds an extra dimension to our research, and also leads to new requirements for software in modelling for instance of solubility of polymers,” Dr. Krooshof explains.
After the company joined the CERE industry Consortium one year ago, software developed in CERE has been implemented.
“I have been pleased to see how the faculty at CERE has responded quickly to our queries,” says Gerard Krooshof, while noting that he does not only attend the Discussion to discuss the current software applications:
“As in other parts of industry, we see a lot of focus on Big Data in biochemical and polymer engineering. In DSM, we are quite confident that this is more than just a hype. Also, we do have activities in quantum computation, DFT (Density Functional Theory, ed.) modelling and similar advanced simulation tools, and also try to bridge these emerging tools to existing chemical engineering tools. I was pleased to learn, that this is also being looked at in CERE.”
“A bit on the same note, the new activities in CERE on the fundamental properties of water caught my attention. I must say, I am a bit sceptical when it comes to finding breakthrough applications of novel types of phase behaviour of water, but at the same time I am curious and look forward to following this. In any case, I find it encouraging that the group at DTU dares to engage in something which is a bit off the normal track.”