Invited Speaker - Professor Andrea Cipollina

Prof. Andrea Cipollina is an Associate Professor of Chemical Process and Plant Design, teaching courses on Conceptual Process Design, Membrane Technology, Process Control. His research activities focus on water desalination and renewable energy technologies, Salinity Gradient Power processes, and processes for valorisation of industrial effluents and brines. All research activities have been carried out with particular focus on the application of specific tools such as Computer Aided Process modelling and optimisation, fluid flow characterization, development of control systems, which have been implemented for theoretical or laboratory investigation of specific phenomena and for piloting activities, all devoted to the development and testing of novel technologies. He has authored more than 100 works in scientific journals and international conferences, edited two books on desalination and renewable energy (titled “Solar Desalination for the 21st Century”, 2007, and Seawater Desalination – Conventional and renewable energy processes, 2009, both published by Springer-Verlag) and one book on Salinity Gradient Power technologies (titled “Sustainable Energy from Salinity Gradients, published by Elsevier in 2016). He has been recently awarded by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE - UK) with the Senior Moulton Medal 2013 for the paper “Development of a Membrane Distillation module for solar energy seawater desalination” published on the Journal Chemical Engineering Research and Design in 2012 and voted as the best paper of the year.

His research activities have largely benefitted from a number of international research projects and collaborations. Among the others the EU-FP7 funded projectsMEDIRAS, PRODES, STAGE-STE and REAPower, and the EU-H2020 funded projects RED-Heat-to-Power, REvivED, ReWaCEM, BAoBaB and ZERO BRINE. He has been the co-founder and past  CEO of the spin-off company ResourSEAs, working in the field of “Blue Circular Economy“ for the development of innovative technologies for the integrated production and mining of goods from the sea. With ResourSEAs, he was awarded the first prize in the industrial category of the Italian PNI 2016 Start-up competition and received the National Prize for Innovation 2017 as best technological start-up originated from University research activities.

 

Invited Talk (Resources Recovery)

Electromembrane Processes for Energy and Water Alternative Supply

Andrea Cipollina

Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy

(andrea.cipollina@unipa.it)

Electromembrane technologies are living a fast-growing era thanks to the efforts made on the development of new better-performing ion exchange membranes and to the implementation on novel technological applications in the fields of water treatment, energy generation & management and chemicals production. Within this context, BW&SW electrodialysis and reverse electrodialysis have been identified as very promising technologies for the alternative supply of fresh water and electricity, respectively. Years of research within EU-funded collaborative projects have led to important achievements with respect to performance enhancement, process reliability and extended potential for new applications in fields such as energy conversion and storage. An overview of activities and results on these themes will be presented with a final look into perspectives for future development directions.

 

Professor Andrea Cipollina
Professor Andrea Cipollina