Research Associate

Email: ju.zhu@imperial.ac.uk

Office: B329, Bone Building

Department of Chemical Engineering 

South Kensington Campus

Personal Website

 

Biography

Date

Role

2014 - present

Research Associate in Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

Project: Manufacturing in Flow: Controlled Multiphase Reactions on Demand (CoMRaDe)

2009 - 2014

PhD in Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham.

Project: Syenthesis of Precious Metal Nanoparticles Supported on Bacterial Biomass for Catalytic Applications in Chemical Transformations

Research

My research interest mainly focuses on the design of multiphase reactor and operation of chemical reactions.

I am currently working as a Research Associate in the Reaction Engineering and Catalytic Technology (REaCT) group in Department of Chemical Engineering. My research project is an EPSRC-funded project - ‘Manufacturing in Flow: Controlled Multiphase Reactions on Demand (CoMRaDe)’, in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry in Imperial College London and the Department of Chemical Engineering in University of Loughborough. This project aims to design fully integrated continuous processes that can offer efficient chemical synthesis and that can be easily implemented at scale for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industry. This involves integrations of a (electro)chemical reactor for generating environmentally-benign oxidants, a emulsification forming system incorporated with a flow reactor for enhancing the reactions at the immiscible liquid/liquid interface, and a (d)emulsification system for achieving effective post-reaction separation. The kinetics and mechanism of selected oxidation reactions will be determined. A predictive multiphase model incorporating different time constants (residence time, droplet formation and coalescence rates as well as intrinsic reaction rate) in order to identify appropriate operating regimes for any given oxidation process will be developed. Following the above initial work on the bench-scale, a pilot plant will be integrated and commissioned.

I also have research background on catalysis and three-phase catalytic reactions. The aim of my PhD research (School of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham) was to manufacture precious metal nanoparticles (Pd, Au) supported on the bacterial biomass. The biomass-supported catalysts were characterised using a range of techniques (e.g. SEM, TEM, TGA, and XRD) and tested their catalytic activities in three-phase hydrogenations and oxidations using semi-batch autoclaves.

Honours and Memberships

  • Standing Committee, CSCST-UK, Dec 2012 - Present
  • Graduate School Travel Scholarship, University of Birmingham
  • Dudley Docker Research Scholarship, University of Birmingham
  • Hufton Postgraduate Scholarship, University of Birmingham