Aqueous Solutions Launches ChemPlugin

As anyone following the efforts to contain the failed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant knows, there is considerable value in understanding how elements in moving water migrate through the environment.

Faced with a crisis like Fukushima, or a terrorist poisoning a municipal water supply, authorities will be able to respond quickly and at less cost to taxpayers thanks to new software called ChemPlugin.

ChemPlugin, designed by University of Illinois Research Park-based Aqueous Solutions LLC, can be used over and over again to quickly create reactive transport simulators in any configuration. Craig Bethke, a Professor emeritus at the University and founder of Aqueous Solutions, pointed out that conventional reactive transport simulators are composed of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and take teams of programmers years to write. With ChemPlugin, he said, one programmer can — in the space of a few days — create a full-featured simulator using just a few dozen lines of code.

Scientists and engineers in dozens of fields face problems involvingreactive transport daily, but conventional simulation programs are difficult to develop and expensive for the end user. ChemPlugin  will make reactive transport models more flexible and less expensive for everyone, from hydrologists to environmental chemists and nuclear engineers, Bethke said.

For more information, please visit ChemPlugin.ORG.