In a general way, "percolation" might be defined as a process in which at least two phases, one continuous and the other dispersed, are in bulk relative movement and exchange heat and/or mass through their interface. In practical terms this covers operations such as adsorption, ion exchange, leaching, washing, fluid-fluid displacement in po rous media, deep bed filtration, chromatography. Apart from the fact that the design of these processes is almost empirical we have concluded to the necessity of organizing a Summer School on this topic because 1. Powerful new concepts have emerged in this...

Adsorption processes have experienced a significant growth in the last decades. This growth was a result of scientific and technological advances which generated new adsorbents as well as new concepts for processing systems (UOP's "Sorbex" process and PSA cycles). The expectations for a continued development of adsorption are high since process engineering is deeply concerned with intensive processes using less energy. Adsorption processes are also relevant to the increasingly important area of biotechonology. The development of affinity processes is a creative synthesis of biochemistry,...

Ion exchangeis a field in which cooperation betweenchemists and chemical engineersis highlydesirable. This NATO AdvancedStudy Institute had as aprimary objectiveto bring together chemists and chemical engineers. The Institute was dedicatedto the memory of Prof. Ted Vermeulen who was supposed to be our scientificadvisor. The lectures presentedat the Institute are collected in this volume together with papers presentedby F.Evangel ista,A.Bungeand G.Grevillot. The materialis arrangedin five sections. The Introduction con- tains a review of the contributions of Vermeulen'swork to the field and an...