UCL Department of Chemical Engineering

The EPSRC has awarded 5M£ toward the establishment of a Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering at UCL. The Centre will be directed by Prof. Marc-Olivier Coppens, Ramsay Memorial Professor and Head of Chemical Engineering at UCL. The EPSRC grant is one of 5 founding "Frontier Engineering Awards", announced by Rt Hon David Willetts, UK's Minister for Universities and Science, at the first Global Grand Challenges Summit in London (http://www.raeng.org.uk/international/global_grand_challenges_summit.htm). 

This comedy night event, organised by the UCL Public Engagement Unit (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-engagement/opportunities/focusonthepositive), had Leon and other UCL academics and students pitching to a merry Soho pub audience why they should win £2000 to support their idea.  With healthy support from members of the Electrochemical Innovation Lab, ‘SuperLeon’ overcame stiff competition for his public understanding of clean power pitch to come out top.

UCL Chemical Engineering has been awarded two out of the six best poster prizes in the ChemEngDayUK 2013:

Following the success of last year’s  Engineering League, set up by our own Ibrahim El-Habbal, Mario Johnson (2012-13 Ramsay Society Sports Secretary) extended this to a larger UCL-wide football tournament. Entries were accepted during Term 1 and the games took place in Term 2. A total of 32 teams entered from various departments including Biochemical Engineering; Biosciences; Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering; Computer Science; Economics; Maths; Management Science and Innovation; Medical Physics; Mechanical Engineering; Physics; Space and Climate Physics and more. The tournament featured 4 rounds and, very deservedly of course, ended with the Chemical Engineering team winning the tournament and the trophy. Well done, guys!

Dr. Paola Lettieri’s article in Waste Management is now listed as one of the most cited articles. The paper is entitled "Recycling and recovery routes of plastic solid waste (PSW): A review" by Al-Salem, S.M.,  Lettieri, P.  and Baeyens, J, published in Volume 29, Issue 10, October 2009, Pages 2625-2643 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2009.06.004).  The review covers four possible routes for Plastic Solid Waste treatment: primary (re-extrusion), secondary (mechanical), tertiary (chemical) and quaternary (energy recovery).

Dr. Eva Sorensen has been awarded the ExxonMobil Excellence in Teaching Award 2012, and named "ExxonMobil Teaching Fellow". This prestigious national Prize, given by the Royal Academy of Engineering, recognises Eva's exceptional engagement, and tremendous achievement in innovative and effective teaching. Congratulations, Eva!

Paul Shearing was the first author of the most cited paper in Chemical Engineering Science in the period 2009-10 for the paper entitled: 3D reconstruction of SOFC anodes using a focused ion beam lift-out technique (Chem. Eng. Sci., 64(17) 3928-3933, 2009.)  The paper, which was amongst the first to utilise focused ion beam techniques to characterise the microstructure of a solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), has been cited by 52 other authors to date.

The Department is pleased to welcome Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens as the new Head of Department and Ramsay Memorial Professor of Chemical Engineering.