Dr Antonis Sergis

Summary

Imperial College Lecturer (July 2021 - Present)

Thermofluids division lecturer on Advanced heat transfer and storage methods.

Imperial College Research Fellow (January 2020 - June 2021)

UKRI - Call for research and innovation ideas to address COVID-19 grant

This project brings together internationally leading expertise in multiphase flows with key stakeholders working to develop evidence to underpin new protocols for safe delivery of UK dental care in the light of covid-19. Aerosol Generating Procedures (AGPs) are ubiquitous in dentistry due to mixed streams of air and water used as coolants during instrumentation. This coupled with evidence that oral fluids contain high levels of viral particles rapidly led to dental AGPs being identified as a critical transmission risk during the current pandemic and all routine UK dental care stopped.

In this project, we will first characterise aerosols formed during the most common dental AGPs, (high-speed and low speed cutting of tooth substrate and ultrasonic dental scalers used for dental cleaning). High speed photography combined with appropriate illumination will be used for aerosol characterisation. The illumination angle and strength and image recording speed will be optimised for quantification of aerosol concentration and aerosol dispersion speed and distance from the source where the aerosol cloud can disperse.

Then, measurements will be conducted in clinically relevant environments using training mannequins with ambient air exchange, enclosure size and operatory furniture reflective of different care settings. Following establishment of base-line aerosol behaviour for current care practices, mitigation steps, including modifications in air/water supplies to instrumentation, reduction in cutting speeds, high volume aspiration parameters and ambient air flow, will be explored. The direct involvement of clinical experts, virologists, public health policy researchers and instrument manufacturers will ensure that findings are rapidly considered.

The British Endodontic Society grant

Quantifying dental aerosol generation and its mitigation in a generalisable way through visualisation and numerical modelling Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust grant Performing research to understand risk and assess possible mitigation routes to allow safe resumption of Dental services at Guy's Hospital under the current pandemic.

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust grant

Performing research to understand risk and assess possible mitigation routes to allow safe resumption of Dental services at Guy's Hospital under the current pandemic.

Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) – UKRI (co-investigator)

Part of a multi departmental project proposal at Imperial College that attracted £118k dealing with Energy for Development – Low-Carbon energy and industry for economic growth in Mongolia. Relevant work package examines Low-carbon ammonia and power production from stranded coal with CCS for generating wealth under an environmentally friendly manner in Mongolia. A high profile workshop in Mongolia to disseminate the findings is also scheduled for 2020.

Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) – UKRI (co-investigator)

Proposal attracting £14k for work in collaboration with the Energy Futures Lab (EFL) at Imperial to develop and launch an advisory white paper entitled “Evaluating the Potential of Ammonia as an Environmentally Sustainable Energy Vector - An Energy Futures Lab White Paper”.

Integrated Development of Low-carbon Energy Systems (IDLES) – EPSRC (senior research advisor)

Whole systems analysis to identify an optimal, integrated, UK energy system to facilitate a cost-effective and secure transition to a low-carbon future. The IDLES programme will analyse across electricity, heat, gas and hydrogen networks, and across energy uses in transport, buildings, water networks, and industrial processes, simulating various scenarios and case-studies. Energy consumption, exploitation of demand flexibility, stakeholder investment decisions, market design, incentivisation and policy objectives will all be considered in the programme’s analysis. The relevant part of research will quantify the positioning of ammonia as an inter-seasonal energy storage medium and green energy vector for UK.

Internal Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) funding award – CCFE UKAEA (co-investigator)

Participated in internal proposal that has been successful in attracting funds to extend the nanofluid high heat flux experiments initiated by the EUROfusion fellowship that make use of the HIVE testbed at CCFE.

EUROfusion Researcher Fellow Based at Imperial College London (June 2016 - January 2020)

The 2014-2018 Work Plan for the implementation of the Fusion Roadmap in Horizon 2020 foresees support for Education and Training of a new generation of scientist and engineers. The EUROfusion Researcher Grants programme encourages excellence and career development of researchers who are already in the program or high quality candidates from outside the programme. A total of 10 grants were awarded for 2016 from an international competition.

Heat management has presently become an enormously important and extremely difficult aspect to grasp for almost every energy handling process - from the largest and most complex machines (cooling down future fusion reactors) to the smallest (cooling down high density computing processor chips). Unfortunately, throughout the advancement of technology over the years, heat conveying technology had little progress with the main principles remaining approximately the same. It is hence a bare necessity to switch to a different process which will allow conveying High Heat Fluxes (HHFs) while at the same time doing it efficiently to be able to continue the advancement towards higher energy density and efficiency devices. One of the promising ways to achieve this is by seeking new “smart” coolants, such as nanofluids, as this has the potential to be a “game changer” in the way we produce energy in a sustainable, affordable and compact manner. The workplan under this EUROfusion fellowship will include a HHF parametric experiment on a HyperVapotron device with nanofluids to quantify their potential at the HIVE testbed of CCFE and an advanced Molecular Dynamic Simulation study performed at Imperial College London.

Research Associate Thermofluids group under the administration of Prof. Yannis Hardalupas (Jul 2014 - Feb 2016)

• Laser Diagnostics - development of optical instrumentation for spray characterisation and application to prefilming swirl atomisers – funding provided by FP7 European project FIRST and the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD).
• Nanofluids Research.
• Teaching and supervising.

 

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