Chemical Engineering | Research
Research includes dynamic surface effects at gas/liquid interfaces. We have been looking at the adsorption of surfactant at expanding liquid surfaces using an overflowing cylinder apparatus to examine Marangoni stresses. We have looked at the adsorption of surfactants at the surfaces of liquid jets, at exposure times down to a few milliseconds, which again reveals some interesting Marangoni effects. We have various research projects looking at foam - how it is stabilised, and how to measure it, in surfactant and biological systems, how to destroy it when it is unwanted, and how to use it in foam fractionation. We have a project looking at the use of biological systems to produce surfactant. Searching for ways to measure and characterise foams we developed optical tomography, as a way of recording cellular structures. There is also a stereo movie of a rotating bubble (needs viewing through red/green spectacles).
There is a lot of interest in the concept of Sustainable Development, and its influence on the education of engineers, and on the practice of engineering. Together with Professor RH Booth, the RAEng Visiting Professor in Engineering Design for Sustainable Development we are developing ideas about sustainable energy, as a case study. In November 2005 Professor RC Darton gave the Hartley lecture at the Royal Society on the subject of Sustainability Metrics, and this can be viewed at the Royal Society website.
The group is also interested in some aspects of water treatment, and is currently working on the problems of oestrogen in treated water. There is evidence that conventional treating plants can be engineered to remove oestrogens to a significant extent (tce article).
Other interests include distillation and absorption, particularly the aspects of mass transfer and hydrodynamics.
Last modified 13 July 2007 by WEBNOBODY.