HCEUK

Professor Vivek Ranade is a Bernal Chair Professor of Process Engineering at Bernal Institute, University of Limerick, Ireland and a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of Queen’s University Belfast. Vivek leads ‘Multiphase Reactors and Process Intensification’ research at University of Limerick and Queen’s University Belfast. The focus is on sustainable energy (anaerobic digesters, biomass to energy & value added chemicals, gasification), water (cavitation for effluent treatment & dis-infection) and fine & specialty chemicals (continuous processing, multiphase reactors & scale-up and process intensification). Vivek is also leading a large collaborative project on valorization of water biomass (www.vwainnovations.org) involving two industries from UK and three industries from India along with other academic and research institutes. Before moving to Ireland, Vivek led chemical engineering research at CSIR – National Chemical Laboratory. He has developed solutions for enhancing performance of industrial flow processes which are implemented and used in industry. These contributions have resulted in significant impact & benefits to industries in various sectors (refinery & petrochemicals, fine and specialty chemicals, materials, energy, water treatment & engineering products). Vivek and his group have developed software products and devices for variety of applications. Many of these products have been commercialized and beneficially deployed in practice. Vivek had conceived and led a large program on development of MAGIC (modular, agile, intensified & continuous) processes & plants. Several new insights and methodologies as well as processes and products for process intensification were developed through that project (many of which are commercialized). Vivek has also worked at ETH, Zurich; TU Delft and University of Twente, The Netherlands. He has guided more than twenty Ph.D. students, taught graduate level courses and conducted workshops for industry practitioners. Vivek is an Associate Editor of ‘Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research’ and serves on editorial board of ‘Indian Chemical Engineer’. He is a recipient of numerous awards including Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award (highest Indian Scientific award for scientists under 45 years in India) and Swarnajayanti Fellowship of DST. He is a fellow of IChemE UK, Indian National Academy Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering and Indian Academy of Sciences. Published more than 200 papers and 9 books (citations > 10000; h index=59: from Google Scholar). 

Professor Sheng Dai received his Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University, Masters and PhD degrees from Nanyang Technological University. He then worked as a postdoc fellow at McMaster University, University of Alberta and University of Toronto under the support of NSERC Canada and NIH USA. After that, he moved the University of Adelaide (Australia) as a Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and Acting Head of School of Chemical Engineering. He came to Newcastle University UK in 2017 as a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Deputy Head of School of Engineering. Later, he took the Founding Head position to establish a brand new Chemical Engineering Department at Brunel University London. Early 2022, he joined the University of Leeds as the Head of School of Chemical and Process Engineering. Sheng’s research expertise is to develop diverse applications of functional polymers, nanomaterials and interfaces in healthcare, clean energy, catalysts and water technology. To date, he has published more than 160 referred journal articles associated with over 12,000 citations.

Arthur joined the Department of Chemical Engineering (CE) at the University of Manchester in 1998. He received the Royal Society Brian Mercer Award for Innovative research in 2008 for the hydrocracking of mixed polymer waste, later patented. He also received an ExxonMobil Royal Academy of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Gold Medal in the same year.  

Arthur is an associate member of the IChemE and has led the departmental IChemE accreditation in 2013 and 2018. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2014 and Professor of Catalysis in 2019. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles, supervised over 40 PhD students, and, has current research bids totalling over £13M with very recent industrial research awards (£3M). Recent UK awards include:

• UK Catalysis Hub ‘Science’ 3: Catalysis for the Circular Economy awards entitled “Keeping Platform Chemicals in Play” and “Reframing plastic waste as a resource”, 2019 -2022
• UKRI Plastics Recycling and Innovation Fund award “Rethinking, Resources and Recycling (RE₃)developing a cross-disciplinary project on “Sustainable Hospitals”, 2020 – 2021
• Knowledge Transfer Partnership Awards with B&M Longworth on “Recycling Carpet Waste”, 2020 – 2023