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UCL Department of Chemical Engineering

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Enhong Cao

Research Associate

Research

    Research Project

    Title: Catalytic transformation of bio-derived platform molecules

    The project aims to develop new catalytic routes to obtain bulk and specialty chemicals from bio-derived raw materials via environmentally benign processes. This study will lead to innovative technology and new knowledge in key areas of chemical processing from biomass derivatives. The project is collaborated with Chemistry in Cardiff university which takes advantage of complementary expertise of both side in catalyst synthesis, design and evaluation along with microreactor technology and process development. The specifically targeted platform molecules are (a) veratryl/vanillyl alcohols (1), and (b) 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (2). Their catalytic reactions using nano-AuPd on oxide substrates will be developed and compared with our previous discoveries and on-going work on benzyl alcohol (3) oxidation. The research will focus on the development, characterisation and testing of new catalysts, deployment of mutichannel micropacked-bed reactor platform using in-line, in situ and operando studies, and process modelling that will feed back into experimental design steps.
    Feasibility of nanomaterial fabrication by microwave-promoted microreactor The project intends to investigate feasibility of a novel material fabrication strategy by combining the advantages of the microfluidic reactor with microwave irradiation (MI) to develop universal, efficient and potentially scalable methods to reproducibly and stably produce nanomaterials with controllable particle size, PSD, morphology and high yield.

    Research interests

    • Microreaction technology: design, fabrication
    • Characterisation and evaluation of microstructured reactors and microfluidics for gas Liquid or multiphase catalytic reactions
    • Chemical reaction engineering: reaction process design and simulation; catalytic reaction  kinetic study; reactor design and simulation

    Education

    MSc in Chemical Engineering, East China University of Science and Tech nology, Shanghai, China, 1987

    PhD in Chemical Engineering, University of Wales, Swansea, UK, 1996