20 Years UNIFAC Consortium

Twenty Years UNIFAC Consortium

The UNIFAC Consortium

20 Years of Excellence

In 1996 Jürgen Gmehling, Professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University at Oldenburg, founded the UNIFAC Consortium. 20 years of continuous progress made the group contribution models “original UNIFAC” and “modified UNIFAC (Dortmund)” two of the most important estimation method used for process simulation and process synthesis. In 2016 we can celebrate the 20th anniversary.

The model "modified UNIFAC (Dortmund)" has always been and is still the most important model of the UNIFAC Consortium. During the 20 years the continuous work of adding and revising parameters for modified UNIFAC (Dortmund) a tremendous progress has been reached:

UNIFACDO Triangle 1996/1997 UNIFACDO Triangle 2015/2016
1996/1997   2015/2016

The UNIFAC Consortium started with just 2452 parameters for 624 group pairs and has now reached the enormous amount of 6308 parameters for 1675 group pairs, an increase of 157 % in parameters and 168 % in group pairs. This improves the applicibility of modified UNIFAC (Dortmund) to a far wider range of component classes and mixtures. The second important process is revising and updating existent parameters - this improves the reliability and quality of the model by strongly reducing the danger of outliers.

The UNIFAC Consortium also maintains two other models, original UNIFAC and PSRK. Original UNIFAC was already in the focus of the Consortium from its start in 1996 and PSRK was added in 2003. Both models are continuously updated and new parameters as well as parameter updates are introduced.

The work of the UNIFAC Consortium could not been that successful without the continuous development of the Dortmund Data Bank, the source of the experimental data to which parameters are fitted. DDBST has always supported the Consortium and will continue this close cooperation with the UNIFAC Consortium by providing data and software.

And, last but not least, the UNIFAC Consortium depends on its members who finance the work and also add further assistance either by providing data or by providing advice and guidance. The Consortium's annual meetings assemble a group of experts on thermodynamics and process development which proved to be a valuable asset of the Consortium.

UNIFAC Consortium Meeting 2016This year we gather again in Oldenburg and all Consortium members as well as all DDBST customers are invited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the UNIFAC Consortium.

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