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Fabio graduated from L’Aquila with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering in April 2016.
During his MSc he was always looking for fresh new experiences abroad. He spent 6 months in Spain at UNIZAR in Zaragoza and then, eager to embark a new experience as soon as he could, he moved to London to stay 6 satisfying months at UCL as part as Paola Lettieri’s group, developing his thesis on Methanation of Bio-Syngas from waste.
When he had to come back to Italy to graduate, he had the feeling that that was only a temporary goodbye to UCL.
He finally returned to UCL in November 2016 and embarked on a PhD studentship as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie HORIZON 2020 programme, in a project focused on the LCA of innovative nanoparticles processes
Research project
Title: Continuous Sonication and Microwave Reactors (COSMIC)
The research consists of applying LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) methodology to innovative nanoparticles processes, as part of the COSMIC project (Continuous Sonication and Microwave Reactors).
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the most developed and widely used environmental assessment tools for comparing alternative technologies when the location of the activity is already defined. LCA quantifies the amount of materials and energy used over the complete supply chains (i.e. life cycles) of goods and services and identifies emissions and wastes associated with the life cycles. Moreover, it helps to determine the “hot spots” in the system, i.e. those parts that have the most significant environmental impact and should be improved in the first instance, thus enabling identification of more environmentally sustainable options.
The COSMIC project concerns on developing material and energy efficient continuous chemical processes for the synthesis of organic molecules and nanoparticles.
The area of interest is flow technology, millifluidics and external energy fields (ultrasound and microwaves). These energy fields can be applied in structured, continuous milli-reactors for producing high value added chemicals with excellent yield efficiencies in terms of throughput, waste minimization and product quality that simply cannot be achieved with traditional batch-type chemical reactors.
The objectives of this project are therefore:
- Framework for environmental and economic evaluations of emerging technologies
- Hot-spot analysis and comparative analysis of traditional and emerging process technologies for organic and nanoparticle synthesis
Education
MSc in Chemical Engineering, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, 2016
