Refining is the process of purification of a substance. This is common to many processes in many industries. In order to describe such processes, it is important to couple scientific disciplines like thermodynamics, hydrodynamics and reaction kinetics. Since the processes are aimed at improving the chemical composition of a substance, the modelling work needs to account for the chemical components in the process. This is handled by state of the art commercial software and in-house codes. The work involves experts on experiments and specific process knowledge from other SINTEF units such as Metallurgy and Petroleum Research. 

Examples of refining processes addressed by the flow technology group include

• Oxidative ladle refining of metallurgical grade silicon
• Gas stirred and impeller stirred refining of solar grade silicon
• Gas stirred refining of aluminium
• Water and sewerage treatment

Temperature measurement in silicon a ladle.