Fouling in Heat Exchangers

Dr. Francesco  Coletti: CEO, Hexxcell Ltd

Dr. Francesco Coletti is the CEO of Hexxcell Ltd., a London based technology company providing predictive analytics and prescriptive maintenance solutions for industrial heat transfer systems to major international oil&gas and petrochemical companies. He has a track-record of developing industrial digital solutions from ideation to deployment in the field, with particular focus on hybrid AI-deterministic models for monitoring, optimization and predictive maintenance of process and energy systems. Over the past fifteen years, he has been involved with several digital transformation projects working within or for Blue Chip companies in various capacities.

Francesco is also a part-time Associate Professor at Brunel University London where he contributed to the launch of a new Chemical Engineering Department. He has co-edited a monograph dedicated to Crude Oil Fouling and published over 70 journal articles and conference proceedings. He is also the Executive Editor of Heat Exchanger Design Handbook, one of two elected representatives for the UK serving on the Scientific Committee of the International Heat Transfer Conferences, the top global conference in the field held every four years. He was elected to the UK National Heat Transfer Committee (2014), subsequently appointed as its Secretary (2016) and is a Director of the AIChE Fuels&Petrochemical Division (since 2019).

He holds a Laurea degree in Chemical Engineering from Padova University, Italy; an MSc in Process Systems Engineering and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK. His thesis on “Multi–scale Modelling of Refinery Pre–heat Trains Undergoing Fouling for Improved Energy Efficiency” was awarded the Newitt Prize for best Computational PhD thesis in Chemical Engineering.

Hans Borgt: Global Technical Associate Industrial Cleaning, The Dow Chemical Company

Hans has over 20 years’ experience in the industry, the last 14 years at DOW Chemical Company where he is as a Global Technology Associate responsible for DOW’s strategy and technology development for the broader Industrial Cleaning space. He is part of DOW’s Technical Expertise & Solutions Technology Center.

He is President of the European Water Jetting Institute, Co-Chair of the Global Industrial Cleaning (GICC) Standards Committee, and also serves as the Board Secretary for the Stichting Industriële Reiniging (SIR) (Foundation for Industrial Cleaning B/NL). He is a member of several SIR issue groups (high pressure and vacuum technology), as well as chair of the chemical cleaning group.

Hans is a technical adviser and lecturer to the Avans Hogeschool for the Industrial Cleaning module in their Maintenance Management course, and for the University of Applied Science Zeeland (HZ) he is an advisor for their HBO-postdoc program towards fouling monitoring and data modelling.

A member of the editorial board of Heat Exchanger Design Handbook, technical advisor to the Knowledge and Innovation Center (KIC|MVP) for their wider Industrial Cleaning projects, technical expert for the Dutch Normalization Institute which he represents at the ISO committee for waterjet cleaning.

CB Panchal: President and Chemical Engineer, E3Tec Service

Dr. Panchal is known for more than 25 years of process heat transfer and fouling research at Argonne National Laboratory. He has managed cooperative projects for fouling mitigation of crude-oil preheat train and hydrotreater feed/effluent heat exchangers and has worked with industry to identify appropriate solutions to fouling in petrochemical plants. Dr. Panchal’s key contributions in petroleum fouling research include 1) promoting the concept of threshold fouling conditions and developing a threshold fouling correlation ; 2) developing and implementing laboratory and field fouling units; 3) working with industrial and academic research partners to develop mechanistic prediction models; 4) emphasizing the role of iron sulfide induced petroleum fouling (crude oil as well as product streams); 5) developing a process model for monitoring coking in fired heaters; 6) organizing Engineering Foundation Conference on fouling mitigation in 1995 that changed the research focus from mechanism studies to mitigation developments; and 7) promoting data-driven, diagnosis-based and monitoring-based fouling mitigation.

Blazo Ljubicic: Consultant, Heat Transfer Research Institute

Blazo’s primary areas of expertise are in the area of process equipment thermal/hydraulic/mechanical design, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, non-Newtonian fluids, and fluid transients. At the Energy and Environmental Research Center, (EERC), at the University of North Dakota, (UND), Blazo worked on developing Coal Water Fuel (CWF) Technology and was involved in the design of the pilot scale Transport Reactor Demonstration Unit, (TRDU), for coal gasification. As a Director of Technology at Koch Heat Transfer, (KHT), his responsibility included directing and managing products development from concept to production, and as Director of Research at Heat Transfer Research Inc. (HTRI), he was responsible for application-oriented research on large-scale equipment in the general area of heat transfer and associated fluid flow. With broad industrial experience, combined with effective analytical skills he conducted number of studies on performance analysis and optimization of various types of heat transfer equipment used in the petrochemical and power generation industry.

Iqbal M Mujtaba: Associate Dean (Learning & Teaching), Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bradford

Iqbal is a Professor of Computational Process Engineering and is currently Associate Dean (Learning, Teaching & Quality) of the Faculty of Engineering & Informatics at the University of Bradford. He was Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Bradford from 2016-2018. He obtained his BSc Eng and MSc Eng degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) in 1983 and 1984 respectively and obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in 1989. He is a Fellow of the IChemE, a Chartered Chemical Engineer. He was the Chair of the European Committee for Computers in Chemical Engineering Education from 2010-2013 and the Chair of the IChemE's Computer Aided Process Engineering Special Interest Group from 2012-2019. He is currently an Associate Editor for Asia Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering, South African Journal in Chemical Engineering, Chemical Product & Process Modelling and an Editorial Board Member of Desalination.

Professor Mujtaba leads research into dynamic modelling, simulation, optimisation and control of batch and continuous chemical processes with specific interests in distillation, industrial reactors, refinery processes, desalination, wastewater treatment and crude oil hydrotreating focusing on energy and water. He has managed several research collaborations and consultancy projects with industry and academic institutions in the UK, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Qatar, South Africa, Iraq, Algeria, China, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. He has published more than 360 technical papers and has delivered more than 75 invited lectures/seminars/plenaries/keynotes/short courses around the world. He has supervised 35 PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 10 PhD students. He is the author/co-author of (1) 'Batch Distillation: Design & Operation' (text book) published by the Imperial College Press, London, 2004 (2) ‘Wastewater treatment by Reverse Osmosis’ published by CRC Press, 2020. He is one of the co-editors of the books (1) 'Application of Neural Networks and Other Learning Technologies in Process Engineering', Imperial College Press, London, 2001 (2) 'Composite Materials Technology: Neural Network Applications' CRC Press, 2009, (3) 'The Water-Food-Energy Nexus', CRC Press, 2017, (4) ‘Water Management: Social & Technological Perspective’, CRC Press, 2018.

Professor Luis Melo: Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto

Luis F. Melo is Emeritus Professor of the University of Porto at the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP). Since 2000, he is Full Professor at FEUP. From 1994 to 2000 he was Full Professor at the University of Minho. He has over 30 years’ experience in research work on the Science and Technology of Biofilms applied to cooling, drinking and process water systems. He created the Biofilm Groups at the University of Minho (1987) and at the University of Porto/FEUP (2005). He is a member of LEPABE (Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy), a part of ALICE Institute.

Simone Mancin: Associate Professor, Nano Heat Transfer Lab, University of Padova

Simone graduated with distinction in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Padova (2005) where he also gained the PhD on Industrial Engineering (Applied Physics) (2009). He is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Management and Engineering of the University of Padova, where he teaches Applied Physics, Thermo-Fluid Dynamics, and Thermal Management of Electronic Devices.

In 2015, he founded the Nano Heat Transfer lab (NHT-lab), which is mainly focused on experimental and numerical analyses of single and two-phase (both condensation and evaporation) heat transfer inside porous media, microgeometries and nanostructured materials aiming at developing innovative solutions for smart, efficient, and compact heat exchangers for refrigeration and air conditioning, and electronics cooling applications. At NHT, he developed a novel coating techniques for surface functionalization that can be used for, among those, anti-fouling, anti-icing, enhanced heat transfer, and for medical applications.

He is author and co-author of more than 175 paper scientific papers published in several peer-review International Journals and in Proceeding of National and International congresses; he acts as reviewer of several scientific international journals. He is associate editor of HEDH, Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science and Heat Transfer Research. He is also member of the Editorial board of International Journal of Thermofluids, and Heliyon.

Mirco Magnini: Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham

• Dr Mirco Magnini is Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Nottingham, Subject Editor for the Chemical Engineering Design and Research journal, and member of the Physical Sciences working group at the European Space Agency. He received a PhD in Energy Engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 2012, and was a post-doc research associate first (2013-2017) at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and then (2017-2019) at Imperial College London. He has also been visiting researcher at Tel Aviv University, Maryland University and Princeton University. His research focuses on numerical and theoretical methods to investigate multiphase flows, heat transfer and phase change. On these topics, he has published about 30 journal papers and 2 book chapters. His research is currently funded by the EPSRC and the Royal Society.