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UCL Department of Chemical Engineering

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Cristian Triana

Cristian Triana received both the degrees of Chemical Engineer and MSc in Chemical Engineering in the National University of Colombia branch Manizales in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He has worked in the biotechnology field, mainly in the ethanol production process from agro-industrial residues using microorganisms capable of consuming hexoses and pentoses simultaneously, focusing on both experimental and simulation aspects.

Research project

Title: Heat integration and optimisation of the ethanol production process from lignocellulosic biomass.

The ethanol production process from lignocellulosic biomass is a promising alternative for the generation of energy from renewable sources. This work presents the simulation of the complete process taking into account a fed-batch approach (pretreatment and fermentation) and a continuous approach (distillation and pervaporation) using gPROMS. This work covers the following aspects:

•    Mass and energy balances of all the units and the influence of the operating conditions
•    Schedules and tasks for each unit
•    Experimentation on membranes for ethanol separation, model formulation and parameter estimation
•    Implementation of membrane-based separation techniques for a higher efficiency of the process and a lower energy consumption in the separation stages
•    Heat integration of the heat sources
•    Optimisation of the process

Education

MSc in Chemical Engineering, National University of Colombia, 2010
Undergraduate in Chemical Engineering, National University of Colombia, 2007