ProfessorRonny Pini
Professor of Multiphase Systems
Department of Chemical Engineering - Faculty of Engineering
Orcid identifier0000-0002-9443-3573 (opens in a new tab)
- Professor of Multiphase SystemsDepartment of Chemical Engineering - Faculty of Engineering
- 020 7594 7518 (Work)
- 318, ACE Extension, South Kensington Campus, United Kingdom
RESEARCH
Specific research areas include:
- Supercritical gas storage: we use state-of-the-art experimental facilities to study gas adsorption in porous solids at high-pressure and temperature conditions. We develop and apply mathematical models of different complexity to describe the experimental data, including formulations based on the lattice Density Functional Theory.
- Gas adsorption processes: we are interested in a range of industrial applications, including hydrogen purification, carbon dioxide capture from flue gas or directly from the air, and biogas upgrading; we study these processes by producing experimental data for the fundamental properties of interest and by combining them with process modelling.
- Chemical transport in porous media: we study a range of problems, including transport in the presence of interfacial processes, such as retention and capillarity, as well as of fluids with complex rheology. Applications include geological carbon dioxide storage and molecular gas separations. We develop experimental methods to probe the mixing process using three-dimensional imaging techniques, and couple them with numerical models of at different length-scales, including both pore-network and continuum-scale formulations.
- Multiphase flow in porous media: capillarity in disordered porous media is affected by a variety of factors including the structural and chemical properties of the system. We deploy tomographic and optical methods at various length-scales to study phenomena such as gas/oil trapping, wetting and capillary heterogeneity, with specific application to carbon dioxide storage.
- Digital materials and imaging technology: at the core of some of the experimental methods described above is the development of suitable workflows for image processing and analysis, which varies depending on the material and process under study. We deal with multiphase systems that possess distinct degrees of disorder in both their chemical and morphological characteristics.
RESEARCH STAFF
- Edward Bailey (Experimental officer) | Shell Digital Rock imaging lab
- Hassan Azzan (PDRA) | InFUSE prosperity Partnership (co-supervised with Dr. Camille Petit)
- Takeshi Kurotorii (PDRA) | InFUSE prosperity Partnership
- Carsten Wedler (Honorary Research Fellow)
RESEARCH STUDENTS SUPERVISION
- Lucy Barton (PhD candidate) | Molecular engineering and design of CO2 sorbents for air capture using a rotary adsorber (co-supervised with Dr. Camille Petit)
- Andrea Rovelli (PhD candidate) | Chemical transport in partially saturated porous media
- Kleio Zervidi (PhD candidate) | Hybrid systems for CO2 capture (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit and Prof. Martin Trusler)
- Amarjot Bhullar (PhD candidate) | Porous media flows of complex rheology
- Juan-Carlos Roa (PhD candidate) | Multi-scale porosity in carbonate rocks
- Connor Wright (PhD candidate) | Spectro-microscopy of Electrochemical Interfaces for the Energy Transition (co-supervised with Prof. Mary Ryan and Prof. Magda Titirici)
- Nihal Darraj (PhD candidate) | Pore-to-core linkages and upscaling for gas injection in carbonates (co-supervised with Prof. Sam Krevor and Prof. Martin Blunt)
- Killian Gmyrek (PhD candidate) | Chemical Transport and adsorption in hierarchical porous solids (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- David Büchner (PhD candidate) | Multimodal design and characterisation of adsorption systems for molecular gas separations
- Kristen He (PhD candidate) | Metal organic frameworks for adsorption-based separations in the shipping industry (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- Tristan Spreng (PhD candidate) | Direct air capture using porous polymers (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- Elena Chalasti (PhD candidate) | Cost- and resource-efficient regional deployment of Direct Air Capture (co-supervised with Dr. Maria Papathanasiou and Dr. Gbemi Oluleye)
- Alex Glover (PhD candidate) | Design and optimisation of adsorption-based CO2 capture systems under variable feed condition (co-supervised with Dr. Maria Papathanasiou)
- Supercritical gas storage: we use state-of-the-art experimental facilities to study gas adsorption in porous solids at high-pressure and temperature conditions. We develop and apply mathematical models of different complexity to describe the experimental data, including formulations based on the lattice Density Functional Theory.
- Gas adsorption processes: we are interested in a range of industrial applications, including hydrogen purification, carbon dioxide capture from flue gas or directly from the air, and biogas upgrading; we study these processes by producing experimental data for the fundamental properties of interest and by combining them with process modelling.
- Chemical transport in porous media: we study a range of problems, including transport in the presence of interfacial processes, such as retention and capillarity, as well as of fluids with complex rheology. Applications include geological carbon dioxide storage and molecular gas separations. We develop experimental methods to probe the mixing process using three-dimensional imaging techniques, and couple them with numerical models of at different length-scales, including both pore-network and continuum-scale formulations.
- Multiphase flow in porous media: capillarity in disordered porous media is affected by a variety of factors including the structural and chemical properties of the system. We deploy tomographic and optical methods at various length-scales to study phenomena such as gas/oil trapping, wetting and capillary heterogeneity, with specific application to carbon dioxide storage.
- Digital materials and imaging technology: at the core of some of the experimental methods described above is the development of suitable workflows for image processing and analysis, which varies depending on the material and process under study. We deal with multiphase systems that possess distinct degrees of disorder in both their chemical and morphological characteristics.
RESEARCH STAFF
- Edward Bailey (Experimental officer) | Shell Digital Rock imaging lab
- Hassan Azzan (PDRA) | InFUSE prosperity Partnership (co-supervised with Dr. Camille Petit)
- Takeshi Kurotorii (PDRA) | InFUSE prosperity Partnership
- Carsten Wedler (Honorary Research Fellow)
RESEARCH STUDENTS SUPERVISION
- Lucy Barton (PhD candidate) | Molecular engineering and design of CO2 sorbents for air capture using a rotary adsorber (co-supervised with Dr. Camille Petit)
- Andrea Rovelli (PhD candidate) | Chemical transport in partially saturated porous media
- Kleio Zervidi (PhD candidate) | Hybrid systems for CO2 capture (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit and Prof. Martin Trusler)
- Amarjot Bhullar (PhD candidate) | Porous media flows of complex rheology
- Juan-Carlos Roa (PhD candidate) | Multi-scale porosity in carbonate rocks
- Connor Wright (PhD candidate) | Spectro-microscopy of Electrochemical Interfaces for the Energy Transition (co-supervised with Prof. Mary Ryan and Prof. Magda Titirici)
- Nihal Darraj (PhD candidate) | Pore-to-core linkages and upscaling for gas injection in carbonates (co-supervised with Prof. Sam Krevor and Prof. Martin Blunt)
- Killian Gmyrek (PhD candidate) | Chemical Transport and adsorption in hierarchical porous solids (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- David Büchner (PhD candidate) | Multimodal design and characterisation of adsorption systems for molecular gas separations
- Kristen He (PhD candidate) | Metal organic frameworks for adsorption-based separations in the shipping industry (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- Tristan Spreng (PhD candidate) | Direct air capture using porous polymers (co-supervised with Prof. Camille Petit)
- Elena Chalasti (PhD candidate) | Cost- and resource-efficient regional deployment of Direct Air Capture (co-supervised with Dr. Maria Papathanasiou and Dr. Gbemi Oluleye)
- Alex Glover (PhD candidate) | Design and optimisation of adsorption-based CO2 capture systems under variable feed condition (co-supervised with Dr. Maria Papathanasiou)