Academic research groups

Biofluids and Transport

Academic lead: Professor Yun Xu
Research interests: Biofluid mechanics and biotransport; drug delivery systems; flow and mixing of biomass suspensions in bioreactors.

Ceroni Lab

Academic lead: Dr Francesca Ceroni
Research interests: cell engineering, synthetic biology, cancer therapy, bioprocessing

Chen Group

Academic lead: Professor Rongjun Chen
Research interests: Biomaterials; nanomedicine; drug delivery; vaccine formulation and storage; cell and gene therapy; cancer treatment; thrombotic disease therapy

Clean Energy Processes

Academic lead: Professor Christos Markides
Research interests: energy efficiency/integration; heat recovery/conversion technologies; applied thermodynamics; heat transfer; turbulent reacting/multiphase flows.

Complex Multiscale Systems

Academic lead: Professor Serafim Kalliadasis
Research interests: engineering science fundamentals, especially the cusp between applied mathematics, engineering science and complex systems.

Elani Group: Biomimetic Technologies

Academic lead: Dr Yuval Elani
Research interests: Biochemical Technologies; Microfluidics; Particle Engineering; Synthetic Cells; Synthetic Biology; Nanomedicine

Electrochemical Systems Laboratory

Academic lead: Dr Anna Hankin
Research interests: Electrochemical energy conversion, CO2 reduction and separation processes for industrial effluent treatment and material recycling.

Eslava Group: Applied Energy Materials

Academic lead: Dr Salvador Eslava
Research interests: Materials design and engineering of photoelectrochemical, photocatalytic, and electrochemical devices for clean fuels and chemicals

Fennell Group

Academic lead: Professor Paul Fennell
Research lead: Carbon capture and storage; clean production of energy; synergies between industry and power generation.

Hallett Group

Academic lead: Professor Jason Hallett
Research interests: Ionic liquid based biorefining; deconstruction of biomass and hybrid bioprocessing using ionic liquids.

Hammond Lab

Academic lead: Dr Ceri Hammond
Research interests: Catalysis and bio-medical engineering

Matar Fluids Group

Academic lead: Professor Omar Matar
Research interests: Hybrid computational fluid dynamics, machine learning, and optimisation approaches to solving multiphase flows problems in energy, manufacturing, and pharma applications.

Academic research groups continued

Functional Membrane and Energy Materials

Academic lead: Dr Qilei Song
Research interests: Design, synthesis, and characterisation of functional nanoporous materials for energy and environmental applications.

Molecular Systems Engineering

Academic leads: Professor Claire Adjiman, Professor Amparo Galindo, Professor George Jackson, Professor Erich Müller and Professor Costas Pantelides
Research interests: Integrated molecular and process design, molecular dynamics of transport of fluids through porous media, accelerating chemical reactions by computer-aided molecular design

Petit Research Group - Multifunctional Nanomaterials

Academic lead: Professor Camille Petit
Research interests: Porous materials, materials synthesis and characterisation, molecular separations, photocatalysis, energy & sustainability processes

Optimisation and Machine Learning for Process Engineering

Academic lead: Dr Antonio Del Rio Chanona
Research interests: Optimisation, control & reinforcement learning, machine learning applied to bioprocesses, optimisation for stochastic processes, machine learning based optimisation

Papathanasiou Lab

Academic lead: Dr Maria Papathanasiou
Research interests: industry 4.0 principles in (bio-) pharmaceutical processes, development of digital twins and control methodologies for process understanding, optimisation and automation.

Polizzi Lab

Academic lead: Professor Karen Polizzi
Research interests: Bioprocessing, synthetic biology, vaccines and sustainable food production.

Polymers and Microfluidics

Academic lead: Professor Joao Cabral
Research interests: Experimental soft condensed matter, complex fluids, often multicomponent systems, containing polymers, copolymers, (nano)-particles and surfactants.

Reaction Engineering and Catalytic Technology

Academic lead: Professor Klaus Hellgardt
Research interests: Solar (bio)fuels and products; clean fossil fuels; flow chemistry; electrochemical reactors/fuel cells; hydrogen.

Surfaces and Particle Engineering Laboratory

Academic leads: Professor Jerry Heng and Professor Daryl Williams
Research interests: SPEL specialises in the processing, manufacture and characterising of solid state particulate materials, such as powders, fibres films and aggregates. With our world class characterisation and solids preparation facilities, we study pharmaceutical
Professor Jerry Heng: Nucleation and crystallisation; mesoporous materials; surface properties and wettability; particle engineering; material characterisation.
Professor Daryl Williams: Particulate materials - their characterisation, processing and formulation- with a special focus on surface phenomena.

Thermophysics Laboratory

Academic lead: Professor Martin Trusler
Research interests: Thermophysical properties of fluid mixtures for industrial applications, including the oil, gas and CCS sectors.

Titirici Group

Academic lead: Professor Magda Titirici
Research interests: Materials solutions that are based on renewable (e.g. biomass and waste-derived) rather than fossil, resources.

Tomorrow's Chemical Technologies Lab

Academic lead: Dr Roberto Rinaldi
Research interests: Catalytic valorisation of lignin and cellulose by unconventional approaches, such as catalytic transfer hydrogenation, mechanocatalysis and solvent design.

Academic research groups continued

Dr Adam Hawkes

Research interests: Energy systems modelling; low carbon heat technologies; fuel cells; microgeneration; modelling integrated/coordinated energy systems.

Dr Marcos Millan-Agorio

Research interests: Catalytic upgrading of hydrocarbons; thermochemical characterisation of fuels; coal/biomass gasification and pyrolysis.

Dr Ronny Pini

Research interests: Single- and multi-phase flow in porous media, high-pressure (supercritical) adsorption in nano-/micro-porous solids, and multi-scale imaging of phase-equilibria and/or flows in porous media.

Professor David Chadwick

Research interests: Engineering of catalytic processes; development of new catalysts; study and modelling of reaction kinetics.

Professor Geoffrey Maitland

Research interests: Carbon capture and storage; exploiting non-conventional sources of hydrocarbons; renewable production of hydrogen.

Professor Kang Li

Research interests: Development of ceramic and polymeric membranes and membrane systems for fluid separations and reactions.

Professor Paul Luckham

Research interests: Colloid and interface science; measurement of inter-particle forces; rheology of complex fluids; novel nanoparticles.

Vibrational Spectroscopy and Chemical Imaging

Academic lead: Professor Sergei Kazarian
Research interests: Materials; polymer, pharmaceutical, forensic and biomedical sciences; nanotechnology; microfluidics; supercritical fluids; advanced spectroscopy; chemical imaging.

Yetisen Group

Academic lead: Dr Ali Yetisen
Research interests: Biochemical sensors; optical probes; nanotechnology; diagnostics; medical devices; healthcare