Dear Colleague,
 

It gives me great pleasure to send you this second 2011 issue of the EFCE e-newsletter. I do hope that the information will be of interest to you. If you have comments on the newsletter please get in touch.

With kind regards and compliments of the season

Richard Darton
EFCE President

       In this issue:

• EFCE Forum at Berlin
• Who's Who
• EFCE Awards
• EFCE Events
• Science and Technology
• News from the Member Societies
• Contact

EFCE Forum at Berlin

The EFCE has been thinking about its future strategy. The world around us is changing fast, with anxieties about fossil fuel and global warming, about resource depletion and security of supply of many key commodities. All this against the backdrop of wilting economies - the banking crisis and its knock-on effects. On the other hand we have seen steadily improving living standards in most areas, with great new technologies and products that improve lives still further. And we have the opportunities offered by revolutions in communications and biotechnology. This is not an exclusive list of changes! So how should the EFCE be responding? Following an open Forum discussion at CHISA in Prague in 2010, we organized a "Perspectives" opinion survey early in 2011. The results were presented at a Forum in Berlin in September, prior to ECCE8. Extrapolating from some 1800 responses across Europe suggests that we are pretty pleased to be chemical engineers - 83% agreed that "Chemical engineering is the right career for me". We are worried about jobs though. In Germany 91% agreed that employment prospects for chemical engineers were good - the highest in the EFCE area - but in other places the optimism was less, and sometimes much less - a matter of concern. A convincing 87% felt that governments should do more to reduce reliance on fossil energy, though 58% asked for more factual information to enable them to understand energy and climate issues. The Survey included many other topics, and the Forum at Berlin went on to discuss what our priorities should be. To diversify the debate we split up into five groups, and we certainly heard a variety of intriguing ideas! Here are a few, to give a flavour: we should improve our outreach to young people, since too few participate in our Working Parties and Sections; we emphasize energy issues, but do not think so much about water, which is also a vital, and frequently scarce, resource. Many wanted the EFCE and leading chemical engineers to be more visible in policy debates on issues like water, energy, industry. There was much discussion of education - the need for updated and engaging course content and the desire of some for a more robust international accreditation. I have suggested elsewhere that we now need to move from Survey to Strategy to Delivery, and that is the challenge. There will be more to report on this at the next Forum at CHISA 2012.

Richard Darton

Who's Who

EFCE Officers' election

Professor Richard Darton, Oxford, United Kingdom, has been re-elected to serve a second two-year term as EFCE President. The EFCE General Assembly also re-elected Dr. Wridzer Bakker, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, to serve a second term in the position of EFCE Executive Vice-President. Richard Darton and Wridzer Bakker received the unanimous support of the EFCE General Assembly, which met in Berlin, Germany, on 25 September 2011.
 

Professor Rafiqul Gani from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has been elected by the EFCE General Assembly to succeed BASF's Dr. Hermann Feise as Scientific Vice-President of the Federation from 1 January 2012.
Rafiqul Gani currently holds the position of Professor in Systems Design at the Department of Chemical Engineering at DTU. His research interests include: Multiscale modeling for managing the complexity in process-product design; Sustainable process design and analysis, including process intensification; Computer aided product (molecule and formulation) design; Development of systematic computer aided methods & tools; Development of predictive models for estimation of properties of chemical systems. He has been a member of the EFCE Executive Board since 2005 and is a member and past-chairman (2001-2007) of the EFCE Working Party on CAPE. In 2010 he was awarded the prestigious Recent Innovative Contribution in CAPE Award of the Working Party. more ...

New EFCE Executive Board members

Following the resignation of Dr. Andreas Knell, Switzerland, and Dr. Jochen Rudolph, Germany, as industrial members of the EFCE Executive Board, at its meeting in Berlin on 24 September 2011 the Executive Board unanimously decided to co-opt Dr.-Ing. Andreas Schreiner, Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland, and Dr. Hermann J. Feise, BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany, until the end of the election period.

EFCE Awards

Call for Nominations 2012

The Federation has great pleasure in announcing the call for nominations for the following Excellence Awards to be presented in 2012:

• Excellence Award in Recognition of an Outstanding PhD Thesis on CAPE:
  Deadline for submission of nominations: 31 December 2011
  Further information: http://www.efce.info/ExcellenceAwardCAPE.html
• Excellence Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering 2012
  Deadline for submission of nominations: 1 March 2012
  Further information: http://www.efce.info/ExcellenceAwardCRE.html
• Excellence Award in Membrane Engineering 2012
  Deadline for submission of nominations: 31 March 2012
  Further information: http://www.efce.info/ExcellenceAwardMembraneEngineering.html

EFCE Excellence Award Winners

The Federation has great pleasure in announcing recent winners of EFCE Excellence Awards:

• Excellence Award in Crystallization 2011
  Dr. Levente L. Simon, Romania
  Dr. Simon was awarded the prize after impressing the judges with two research papers which demonstrated his innovative approaches to crystallization research. "Endoscopy based in-situ bulk video imaging of batch crystallization processes" and "Bulk video imaging based multivariate image analysis, process control chart and acoustic signal assisted nucleation detection" were published in Organic Process Research & Development and Chemical Engineering Science respectively. The award was presented in Zurich, Switzerland, on 15 September 2011 at the 18^th International Symposium on Industrial Crystallization (ISIC-18).
  more...

• Excellence Award in Product Design and Engineering 2011
  Dr.-Ing Patrick Frohberg, Germany
  Dr. Frohberg was named as the award recipient for his excellent PhD thesis entitled "Studies on the production and optimization of protein-based biopolymers", completed at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany, under the supervision of Professor Joachim Ulrich. The award was presented on 28 September 2011 during the 5^th European Conference on Product Design and Engineering held in conjunction with ECCE8/ECAB1 in Berlin, Germany, on 28-29 September 2011.
  more...

• Excellence Award in Fluid Separations 2011
  Dr.-Ing. Constantin Frerick, Germany
  He received the award in recognition of his excellent PhD thesis "Rigorous Modelling, Simulation and Evolutionary Optimisation of Generic Protein Downstream Processes", completed in 2009 at the Technical University Dortmund under the supervision of Professor Andrzej Górak. The award was presented on 28 September 2011 in Berlin, Germany, during the session "Innovative separation technologies - Membrane separations I" of ECCE8/ECAB1.
  more...

EFCE Poster Award on Intensified Technologies for Multiphase Processes

Dipl.-Ing. Stephan Aschauer, Bayreuth, Germany, is the winner of the EFCE Poster Award 2011 for the best poster presented at the special poster session on "Intensified Technologies for Multiphase Processes". The session was jointly organised by the EFCE Working Parties on Chemical Reaction Engineering, Multiphase Fluid Flow, and Process Intensification at ECCE8/ECAB1 in Berlin. Stephan Aschauer obtained the accolade for the poster entitled "Continuous Isobutane/2-Butene Alkylation in a droplet-reactor using Lewin acidic ionic liquids promoted with tert-butyl-halides as catalysts".
 

Dankwerts Lecture

This year's Danckwerts Lecture was given by Prof. Dr. Frances H. Arnold, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 at ECCE8/ECAB1. The title of the lecture was "Design by evolution: engineering biology in the 21^st century".
Frances H. Arnold is Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Her main research areas are protein engineering, directed evolution, biocatalysis, biological circuit design, and bioenergy. The Danckwerts Lecture is an annual award lecture commemorating Professor Peter V. Danckwerts and his contribution to scholarship in chemical engineering. It is sponsored by EFCE, AIChE - the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and Elsevier, publisher of the journal Chemical Engineering Science of which Danckwerts was founder editor.

Forthcoming Events

 
Report on ECCE8/ECAB1

8^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering, Berlin, Germany, 25-29 September 2011 (EFCE Event No. 693) together with the ProcessNet-Annual Meeting and the 1st European Congress of Applied Biotechnology including DECHEMA's Biotechnology Annual Meeting

The 8^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (ECCE8) and 1^st European Congress of Applied Biotechnology (ECAB1), which took part in Berlin in September 2011, generated intense discussions and received strong interest across all disciplines. For four days, 2960 scientists from industry and academia discussed topics from research and practical application. Especially the lectures on downstream processing of biotechnological products were strongly frequented; interest in sessions on energy storage, future thinking in innovation and process intensification were also received with great interest. Dr. Hermann Feise, Chairman of ECCE and EFCE's Scientific Vice-President, underlined in his opening address that process engineers and biotechnologists were not holding their meetings at the same time in the same place, but jointly. Accordingly, the different disciplines met not only in the joint sessions but used the opportunity to listen to lectures from the respective other area. This is a tremendous success. Professor Alois Jungbauer, Chairman of ECAB, concluded: "The event has shown that we have entered into the age of biology. Biotechnology and chemistry are merging." Maybe the strongest proof of the success of this joint event was given at the very end, with the announcement that the joint event will be a model for the future: The 9th European Congress of Chemical Engineering and the 2nd European Congress of Applied Biotechnology will be held concurrently in The Hague in 2013.

EFCE EVENTS 2012:

3^rd International Gas Processing Symposium
Doha, Qatar, 5-7 March 2012 (EFCE Event No. 706)
Under the Patronage of His Highness the Heir Apparent of the State of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar University's Gas Processing Center organises the 3^rd International Gas Processing Symposium 2012. Many industrial and academic keynote speakers in the field will present at the symposium. The symposium addresses challenges and opportunities in the field of Gas Processing including but not limited to design, operation, safety, environmental sustainability.
Symposium website: https://gpc.qu.edu.qa/Symposium.aspx

InMoTher 2012
International Workshop on Industrial use of Molecular Thermodynamics, Lyon, France, 19-20 March 2012 (EFCE Event No. 700)
The workshop is a joint initiative of the EFCE Working Party on Thermodynamics and Transport Properties and the German ProcessNet Thermodynamics working parties. It is organised by the French SFGP working party and the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) Lyon.
The improved understanding of molecular-scale phenomena opens up an immense field of new possible applications for the chemical industry and beyond. The recent efforts in this field have resulted in models, simulation methods, and tools that allow not only solving academic problems but also contribute substantially to industrial research and development. They open up routes to gain insight and improve processes which up until now could only be dealt with empirically. The workshop is aimed at providing industrial experts with a clear vision of the opportunities that lie within this rapidly developing interdisciplinary field, where efforts from natural sciences and engineering are combined. It represents a unique opportunity to gain an overview of the state of research and its applications in the developing of engineering models.
Workshop website: http://www.congres-sfgp.eu/inmother2012/

ESCAPE 22
22^nd European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, University College London, UK, 17-20 June 2012 (EFCE Event No. 695)
Computer aided process engineering (CAPE) plays a key design and operations role in the process industries. This conference will feature presentations by CAPE specialists and address strategic planning, supply chain issues and the increasingly important area of sustainability audits.
London's financial experts will offer their own perspective on the discussion, with experts collectively highlighting the need for CAPE practitioners to embrace the three components of sustainable development: environmental, social and economic progress - and the role of systematic and sophisticated CAPE tools in delivering these goals. This will increase the awareness of CAPE amongst new audiences, in particular within the commercial sector.
An ideal conference for both experienced CAPE practitioners and newcomers alike.
Symposium website: http://www.icheme.org/ESCAPE22/

ACHEMA 2012
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 18-22 June 2012 (EFCE Event No. 703)
ACHEMA is the world forum of the process industry and the trend-setting technology summit for chemical engineering, environmental protection and biotechnology. The 30^th ACHEMA will again be the leading international meeting point for decision-makers and experts from all related industries - the number of exhibitors registered for ACHEMA 2012 has recently passed the 3000 mark. The congress programme of ACHEMA 2012 will include some 900 diverse, up-to-date and top-class lectures reflecting a very broad range of process technologies.
Event website: http://www.achema.de

ANQUE's International Congress on Chemical Engineering 2012
Seville, Spain, 24-27 June 2012 (EFCE Event No. 701)
Congress theme: Innovating for the future
Combining science -chemistry- with the discipline of engineering, chemical engineers have continuously improved our well-being for more than a century, designing and manufacturing materials and products essential to our modern society. ANQUE's main aim is to promote and support professional development in chemistry and chemical technology to move forward professionally and to enrich the world we live in.
ANQUE's International Congress of Chemical Engineering (ANQUE-ICCE 2012) will be a national and international reference in the fields of chemical engineering and chemistry applied to industry. All key areas for chemical engineers are included in the programme.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 February 2012
Congress website: http://www.anqueicce2012.org

CHISA 2012
20^th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic, 25-29 August 2012
The Congress, which is traditionally attended by participants from all over the world, is devoted to the entire area of chemical engineering topics, covering science, research, development and industrial practice. Pan-European contacts and global co-operation will be emphasised. The Exhibition MARCHES 2012 will also be arranged. In addition to the congress topics ranging from reaction engineering through sustainable processing and production to clean technologies, the following specialised symposia (preliminary list) will be organised: Environmental engineering; Safety in chemical industry; Supercritical fluid applications; Thermodynamics and transport properties; Food processing and technology; Micro- and mesoporous materials; Process intensification and miniaturisation; Next generation biofuels from laboratory to industry; Progress in chemical technology and biotechnology; F3 Symposium.
Meetings of EFCE Working Parties and special workshops will also be held.
Paper submission deadline prolonged till 15 February 2012
Congress website: http://www.chisa.cz/2012

ISCRE 22
22^nd International Symposium on Chemical Reaction Engineering, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 2-5 September 2012 (EFCE Event No. 692)
Symposium theme: Chemical Reaction Engineering: the key to resource sustainability, human health, and quality of life
Sustainability, human health and quality of life have been selected by the ISCRE 22 Organizing Committee as key symposium themes because these topics will continue to determine the scientific, industrial and political agenda for many decades to come. Energy, raw materials and feedstock resources will become increasingly scarce in the next decades while demand is increasing tremendously in many world regions. Novel technologies and processes are needed for example for the efficient production of chemicals from biomass feedstocks and for the use of renewable and clean energy sources for electricity production and transportation. The growth and aging of the world population requires new and innovative health systems, such as in the field of controlled drug release, development of smart medical devices, and application of smart diagnostics and analytics. The quality of life is largely dependent on the air and water quality, the degree of emission reduction, development of new personal care and food products, and not to forget on improving process and product safety. ISCRE 22 aims to be an attractive platform for the exchange of knowledge, information and new ideas. The Symposium used to be well-attended by representatives from many chemical companies and industries. By implementing special sessions for contributions from industry, the organisers expect to be able to re-establish and continue that worthwhile tradition.
Conference website: http://www.iscre22.com

CHoPS 2012
7th International Conference for Conveying and Handling of Particulate Solids (CHoPS 2012), Friedrichshafen, Germany, 10-13 September 2012 (EFCE Event No. 689)
In the tradition of the previous six CHoPS conferences, CHoPS 2012 will focus on the handling and processing of particulate solids. Its main subject areas will be: Storage and Handling of Bulk Solids; Mechanical, Pneumatic and Hydraulic Conveying; Modelling of Handling and Processing of Particles (DEM, FEM, CFD...); Fundamentals of Particle Flow; Segregation & Mixing; Handling and Processing of Food Products; Production of Particulate Solids (crystallisation, precipitation, etc.); Production & Handling of Nanoparticles; Formulation, Coating and Size Enlargement; Environmental Aspects; Size reduction (crushing, grinding, milling); Measurements, Controls & On-line monitoring; Particle Characterisation; Drying of Particulate Materials; Separation & Classification
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 31 January 2012
Conference website: http://events.dechema.de/chops2012.html
 

EFCE EVENTS AND HIGHLIGHTS 2013:

9^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering - ECCE-9
The Hague, The Netherlands, 20-25 April 2013
Congress theme: Shaping a Sustainable Future: Partnership of Academia, Industry and Society
The ambition of the organisers is to make ECCE9 the most comprehensive congress in the 60 year history of EFCE, encompassing all industrial branches, academic disciplines and society stakeholders related to process technology and chemical engineering. Together with the ECCE9, the 2nd European Congress of Applied Biotechnology (ECAB2) will be held in The Hague.
Please sign up at the congress website at http://www.ecce2013.eu  to receive updated information on ECCE9.

Loss Prevention 2013
10^th International Symposium on Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries, Florence, Italy, 12-15 May 2013 (EFCE Event No. 707)
Nearly 40 years have gone by since safety professionals, scientists and practitioners first met at an EFCE Loss Prevention Symposium and in this period considerable progress has been achieved in the field of safety in the process industries. The latter includes besides the chemical industry, also oil and gas, energy, pharmaceutical, food and other industries as well as the related service industry. Despite this progress, we are still witnessing major incidents in Europe and all over the world. Therefore exchanging information and stimulating the development of new methods and the dissemination of data, implementing process safety management which may reduce the risk of fires, explosions and loss of containment in the process industries, is a must and a need. The Symposium is an opportunity to learn from each other, to transfer experience and to preserve existing know-how for the benefit of the process industry and the safety of employees and the public. The technical program, including plenary papers, full and short oral papers, posters, etc., will be structured into 4 parallel sessions: Risk Management and regulatory issues; Human Factor and Management systems; Learning from accident and knowledge transfer; Process safety engineering; Material hazards.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 29 February 2012
Symposium website: http://www.aidic.it/lp2013/

9th World Congress of Chemical Engineering - WCCE-9
Coex, Seoul, South Korea, 18-23 August 2013
Incorporating 15th Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering Congress (APCChE 2013)
Central theme of the Congress: Chemical Engineering: Key to the Future
The scientific program will provide an opportunity for participants to exchange new ideas and information on many important issues in chemical engineering. High-standard plenary and keynote lectures will be provided by outstanding scholars invited both from academia and industry. The Congress will be an occasion for the participants to make new acquaintance and strengthen friendship.
Abstract submission deadline: 31 October 2012
Please register your email address through the website at http://www.wcce9.org  to receive updated information on WCCE 9 & APCChE 2013.
 

An extended list of events in the field of chemical engineering including national events of the EFCE Member Societies is available at http://www.efce.info/events.html

Science and Technology

Report on the 5^th workshop on Food Engineering and Technology
Valencia, Spain, 22-23 March 2011
Host: Prof. Pedro Fito, Institute of Food Engineering for Development, Polytechnic University of Valencia
This is the first time that we had representatives from 17 different European countries. Since the workshop is limited to 18 presenters, a careful selection process prior to the workshop was needed. The overall quality of presentations was very high based on research as well as on dissemination skills. It was also noticeable that the PhD students with international experience (e.g. Erasmus students) performed extremely well scientifically as well as socially. It was also noticeable that the networking among participants worked very well with post PhD workshop discussions and meetings at the International Congress on Engineering and Food (ICEF 11) in Athens, 22 to 26 May, 2011.
Because of the high quality of presentations, it was decided to have 3 equal winners: Maria V. Tzoumaki, Greece; Revital C. Benshitrit, Israel and Ivana Sedej, Serbia as the 3 top candidates. They received equal amounts of the Maggi Research Award and are invited to visit 2 of the Nestle R&D Centre's for one week each. Because of the high quality of PhD students present the Nestle representatives invited 3 additional presenters for the visits. It is unfortunate the other food industries have not yet realized the potential of this meeting to facilitate contacts with the highest quality PhD students in food engineering.
The 6^th PhD workshop will take place in 2012 at the Nestle R&D Centre in Singen, Germany.

Prof. Dietrich Knorr, Chairman of the EFCE Section on Food
 

News from the Member Societies / related organisations

New Swedish EFCE Member Society
The Federation has great pleasure in welcoming the Swedish Association for Chemical Engineers (Svenska Kemiingenjörers Riksförening - SKR) as a new EFCE Member Society to succeed the Swedish society Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien (IVA). EFCE membership was approved by the EFCE General Assembly at its meeting in Berlin on 25 September 2011.

POLYCHAR 20
20^th World Forum on Advanced Materials, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 26-30 March 2012
The conference belongs to a series of prestigious annual conferences taking place in different countries to review the latest research and developments in Materials Science and Engineering. The integral part of the Conference is one day Course on Polymer Characterization. POLYCHAR 20 will focus on nanomaterials, smart materials, biomaterials, green materials and materials for energy and recycling, including topics on predictive methods and simulations, structure-properties relationships, surfaces, interfaces, adhesion and tribology, materials synthesis, rheology and processing, mechanical properties and performance, and electrical and dielectric properties,.
Conference website: http://www.polychar20-croatia.com/ 

Contact

Ines Honndorf, e-mail: honndorf @dechema.de

Every effort is made to ensure the factual accuracy of the content of this e-newsletter, but the EFCE cannot accept any responsibility for errors.