Chemical engineering is traditionally thought of as the discipline which enables the transfer of chemistry from the lab to industrial scale chemical processes. Whilst this may be true, it is only a limited definition. A better definition today might be that chemical engineering is an amalgamation of different fields of learning, maths, chemistry, physics and therefore an interdisciplinary discipline if you will. Certainly this is the definition which is appropriate for describing the research, past to present, which will be reviewed in this lecture.
Some examples will be offered to provide insight into the different research areas studied. One topic, ‘wetting hydrodynamics’, will be discussed at greater length to showcase some of the advanced mathematical-numerical methodologies developed, as well as interesting results and their implications. In closing, excursions into new research areas and open questions will be outlined.
Biography
Serafim Kalliadasis received his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the Polytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and his PhD from the University of Notre Dame, USA. Following a post-doctoral position at the School of Mathematics, University of Bristol, he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Leeds, where he rose through the ranks from Lecturer to Reader in Fluid Mechanics.
In 2004 he moved to Imperial College London as a Reader in Fluid Mechanics and was promoted to Professor of Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics in 2010. He has held a number of visiting positions at institutions including the Laboratoire FAST, France, the Unidad de Fluidos, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Madrid, and the University of Stanford, USA. His research is at the interface between applied mathematics, engineering science and complex systems.
Chair: Professor Andrew Livingston, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Technology
Vote of thanks: Andreas Acrivos, Albert Einstein Professor of Science and Engineering Emeritus, City College of New York