Domenico Macri

Domenico Macri’ received both the degrees in Chemical Engineering and MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calabria (Italy) in 2011 and 2014, respectively. His final year research project was based on the thermodynamic modelling and the experimental analysis of continuous biomass gasification with supercritical water, in collaboration with the ENEA Trisaia Research Center of Rotondella (Italy). He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCL since September 2014, when he started his PhD.

Research project

Title: Study of the defluidization behaviour of industrial reactive particles

Fluid bed reactors are widely applied in industrial chemical processes and they are particularly useful in high temperature systems where the fluidization behaviour allows particulate materials to be handled at a higher temperature than in a static system. However, the limiting fluidization behaviour at high temperature needs to be better understood to ensure good operation and to prevent defluidization. We are investigating the effect of temperature and particle size distribution (PSD) on the fluidization of mixture of carbon (coke) and titanium ore. We are studying the behaviour of such as mixture under conditions close to and below incipient fluidization and in the regime where carbon combustion typically causes defluidization.

Mixing and segregation of the bed material is investigated by varying the amount of carbon (% by weight) and its PSD. The latter is particularly important as coal particles, and in particular the fine ones, are prone to sintering, leading to poor mixing and segregation. Fundamental fluidization measurements, such as minimum fluidization and bubbling velocities, bed expansion, mixing profiles and bed collapse tests, are performed using a unique high power pulsed X-ray imaging technique, which enables to visualize in real time the internal flow pattern inside the vessel and to carry out quantitative information on the average fluid-bed voidage, the bubble dynamics, bubble hold-up, mixing, segregation and clustering in the fluid bed.

Education

MSc in Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, Italy 2014
BSc in Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, Italy 2011