I would like to thank SCI for the Richardson Travel Award which provided the necessary financial support to enable me to attend the International Workshop of Process Intensification 2008 (IWPI 2008) in Tokyo, Japan from 15-18 Oct 2008.
The international workshop of process intensification (IWPI) is held every two years. The last IWPI was held at Kobe University in 2006 and this time it was at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. The workshop focuses on process intensification in chemical engineering whose objective is to develop novel equipment, highly efficient processing technology and non hazardous processes for process optimisation under given boundary conditions. About 140 researchers from all over the world attended this conference and presented about 10 keynote speeches, 30 oral presentations and 60 posters.
I gave an oral presentation entitled 'Intensification of steam reforming of glycerol for hydrogen production using an adsorption enhanced reaction process' which provoked questions on the commercial aspects of steam reforming of glycerol, the solid flux and type of adsorption, optimised condition of steam/glycerol ratio etc. Some suggestions were made, e.g. the process utilisation for steam reforming of ethanol and applications of downstream CO2 etc. The workshop was also an excellent opportunity to network with high profile experts in the field of process intensification and optimisation. And it was really worthwhile to attend.
My paper was well received by the proceedings of IWPI 2008 and a special issue of the International Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan was published in 2009.
Dr Haisheng Chen
University of Leeds
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