5 Nov 2014
The 21st Joint Annual Conference of CSCST (the Chinese Society of Chemical Science and Technology) and SCI's Chinese UK Group was successfully held on 25 October 2014 at the University of Surrey. This year's event, featured the theme 'Integrated System Approaches to High Value Manufacturing' and attracted more than seventy participants from academia and industry. As usual the attendees were very enthusiastic in presenting their research and as a result the conference had a packed programme with two plenary talks, six keynote talks, eleven posters and fourteen oral presentations.
Since its inception in 1994, the conference has traditionally been attended by colleagues with a background in chemistry; however, the talks given at this year's meeting covered many processing engineering topics, reflecting an increase in membership diversity. The conference was opened by Dr Shanning Dong (Chairman of CSCST-UK) and Dr Tao Chen (Conference General Co-Chair), followed by a speech from Dr Zhenxing Li (Chinese Embassy) who highlighted the importance of connecting the research communities and industry in the UK and China.
In the plenary lecture 'Global science & technology: we're all in this together!', Prof Jonathan Seville, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Science at the University of Surrey, discussed the many global issues scientists and engineers are facing today. The talk was followed by another plenary lecture given by Dr Franjo Cecelja (University of Surrey), on holistic optimisation modelling and ontology engineering approach to design the optimised supply chains for both first and second generation of bio-refineries. The rest of the keynote and oral presentations were given in parallel sessions by a mix of postgraduate students and researchers.
In a bid to attract new membership, Professor Joseph Sweeney (SCI Membership Affairs Committee) gave an in-depth overview of SCI and updated the audience on recent developments, as well as covering the benefit of SCI membership during the opening session. The key message was again summarised during the prize giving ceremony at the end of the conference by Dr Cigang Xu and Dr Kenneth Chung (Co-chairmen of the SCI Chinese UK Group).
The conference continues to be one of the most influential annual meetings for Chinese colleagues working in the chemical industry and the general feedback was very positive. It wouldn't be so successful without the collaborative effort of CSCST, SCI and the local organising committee at the University of Surrey.
The SCI Oral and Poster Presentation awards were presented to the following students for their excellent research:
Oral Presentation
1st Prize- Mohamad Vaezi (University of Southampton): 3D printing of fine bioceramic lattice structures
- Nannan Wang (University of Exeter): A general method to synthesize nano-carbon coated nanoparticles in large scale and
- Bahareh Yazdani (University of Exeter): New process to produce Carbon nanotube and graphene (GNT) - Ceramic nanocomposites with improved mechanical properties
- Olumayowa Kajero (University of Surrey): Meta-model development for a complex computational fluid dynamic simulation and
- Anthony Wu (University of Surrey): Economic calculator for small scale anaerobic digestion processes
Poster Presentation
1st Prize- Jianyi Zhang (University of Surrey): Terahertz pulsed imaging for mapping bulk density distribution of roll-compacted ribbons
Dr Kenneth Chung,
Co-Chairman of SCI-Chinese UK Group
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