Overview

Chemical engineers are often associated with the task of designing a chemical process based on mathematical, physical and chemical principles, and are required to make tought and compelx decisions during the preliminary design phase. This will often lead to exhaustive trial-and-error solutions that would subsequently delay decisions. In this respect, mathematical models can be used to address such issues.

This webinar provides an introduction to mathematical models and how they can be used as decision-making tools to perform preliminary process design tasks. Participants will learn about the important fundamentals and steps to creating simple mathematical models for decision-making.

Various applications of mathematical models for process design will also be discussed. It will also be very useful for staff handling process design projects at universities and for students doing process design projects.

Speaker

Viknesh Andiappan, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia

Dr Viknesh Andiappan is an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia. He is currently working on developing systematic supply chain and design models for biomass utilisation. He completed his Ph.D from the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus within two and half years.

His area of specialisation centres on the development of systematic design approaches for biomass energy systems. In particular, his research aims to integrate process design and operational considerations simultaneously to synthesise biomass energy systems.

His research interests also include process synthesis and analysis of energy systems via Process Integration techniques (pinch analysis and mathematical optimisation), synthesis of integrated biorefineries, process simulation, industrial symbiosis planning, energy economics as well as energy planning for greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Dr Andiappan has over 42 publications (with an h-index of 10) and presented several papers in various conferences. He has also established a strong working collaboration with well-known international researchers from Malaysia, Philippines, India, Taiwan, Qatar and United Kingdom. He was the recipient of the Dean PhD Research Scholarship in 2013, and has won several accolades for his research paper presentations as a Ph.D candidate.

He is actively involved in academic teaching and supervision of both undergraduate and post graduate (ie, Masters and PhD) students. He also volunteers with IChemE as a trained Chartered Engineer Competence and Commitment Report assessor.