Overview

Event organised by SCI's Fine Chemicals Group and IChemE Catalysis Special Interest Group.

The production of chemicals employing, for example, hydrogenation of alkynes, nitrobenzoic acid and methyl styrene, and oxidations of bulk feedstocks such as glycerol, glucose and ethanol demand new innovations in catalysis and three-phase reactor design to enhance efficiency and selectivity towards the desired products. In parallel, the field of energy production has rapidly advanced in recent years and led to an increased demand for hydrogen production from steam reforming and the water-gas shift reaction, and the manufacture of synthetic fuels using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. One outcome from global warming on transportation and energy is likely to be a push for companies to find new, more complex feedstocks and a move away from a reliance on gasoline and natural gas. Likewise, the purification of air and water, including the catalytic reduction of pollutants such as NOx will require new approaches.

Traditional reactors such as stirred tanks, packed beds and bubble columns can offer solutions for large-scale applications, but arguably suffer from problems such as large inventory, volume, and mass transport resistances, and require downstream separation technologies to isolate the products. This meeting will focus on alternative technologies which aim to provide intimate contact between the catalyst surface and flow of reactants, reduce transport resistances, and enhance mixing, mass transfer and product yields. Integration of the reactor with heat exchange and separation processes can provide more compact, low energy and inherently safer process designs although fine-tuning, experimental diagnostic studies and modelling of processes are required to understand and optimise such reactors for particular applications.

The event will be suitable for a broad range of attendees from the PhD student to Professor, and Junior Engineer to Technical Manager, however primarily the audience is expected to be comprised of PhD students and early-career researchers and the invited speakers are mostly industrialists and professors.

A mix of keynote, oral and poster presentations will showcase the advances being made in multifunctional reactors for applications across a range of industries from fine chemicals to pharmaceuticals, energy and environmental technologies. Integration of reactors with structured catalysts, heat exchange and separation strategies, including membrane technologies will be a major focus alongside scale-up strategies for application in industry, as well as ‘scale-out’ by ‘numbering up’ which will serve to highlight industrialisation of the developed reactors.

Programme

The programme of invited speakers is already confirmed whilst the flash presentations and posters will be confirmed closer to the date of the meeting.

View programme >>

Organising committee

Prof. Joe Wood, University of Birmingham, IChemE Catalysis SIG Chairperson

Dr Liam Cox, University of Birmingham

Dr Jiawei Wang, Aston University

Dr Steven Hilton, UCL

Dr Fred Hancock, consultant, formerly of Johnson Matthey.

Call for papers

Contributions are invited from those working in all areas of composites manufacture, research, development, commercialisation and use.

There are three options:

• short talk (10 min) primarily aimed at providing opportunities for early-career researchers to present
• flash poster presentation
• poste.

Early-career researchers interested in presenting a short talk should submit a one-page / 300-word abstract to conferences@soci.org by Friday 31 May 2019 with “Reactors, Scale-up and Separations – short talk submission” in the subject line.  The abstract should include the title of the presentation, the authors and their affiliation. Note, oral presentation slots are limited and will be allocated to achieve a balanced programme.

Anyone interested in presenting a poster should submit a one-page / 300-word abstract to conferences@soci.org by Tuesday 27^th August 2019 with the subject line “Reactors, Scale Up and Separations - poster submission” in the subject line. The abstract should include the title of the presentation, the authors and their affiliation.  Please also indicate whether you would like to be considered for a flash poster presentation.

Topics for presentation may be results, reviews or plans and may have already been presented elsewhere. An abstract template can be downloaded here.

Exhibition and sponsorship

An exhibition will take place alongside the conference during refreshment breaks for companies and related organisations who may wish to exhibit. For further information and prices, please email conferences@soci.org. Spaces are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Contacts

Conference Team
T: +44 (0)20 7598 1561
E: conferences@soci.org