Dr Federico Alberini PhD AMIChemE

School of Chemical Engineering
Honorary Lecturer

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0) 121 414 7397
Email: f.alberini@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Chemical Engineering
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Federico Alberini is a Lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering.

Federico is involved in the fluid dynamic research group and has recently been appointed Lecturer. He is always enthusiastic to approach new challenges and he is open for any collaboration on his subject.

His current research interests stem from his desire to understand fundamental aspects of process-structure-function relationships, in the manufacture of formulated liquid products with complex rheology. These fundamental aspects include the relationships of interactions between flow structure, and material structural measurements such as rheology, microscopy, and particle sizing. These measurement tools facilitate speed to market for new products, by understanding critical process parameters in scale-up and how these influence product structure.

To find out about his research group AMFIA (Advanced Measurements for Industrial Applications) please visit the dedicated AMFIA webpage.

Qualifications

PhD in Chemical Engineering
MEng in Chemical Engineering

Biography

Federico Alberini graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor Degree and later in 2010 with a MEng Degree at University of Pisa (Italy).

After 6 months of international exchange for his final master project in the school of Chemical Engineering at University of Birmingham, he decided to start a PhD in the same school.

He finished his PhD in 2013 gaining a lot of experience in the experimental research field. He presented his PhD work at many international conferences and he is published in international journal.

After that he did a postdoc working in collaboration with Unilever and Johnson Matthey. The project title was Manufacturing Development for Formulated Liquid Products. The aims of the project were to analyze and outline the key parameters for scale up or scale down of a process of complex formulated fluids, and to develop new methods to monitor a process online. Identified key features of process fluids, in order to improve inefficient processes.

Teaching

Specialities: Heat transfer, Thermodynamic, Fluid dynamic labs

Maths applied for chemical engineers: taught math tutorials for the MCT course (modelling concepts and tools) to help students to acquire all fundamental mathematical knowledge to deal with mathematical modelling of engineering problems.
Transport phenomena (heat transfer, mass transfer): teaching assistant for concepts of transport phenomena to help students to learn basic and advanced level mass and heat balances, first and second year respectively.
Thermodynamic: taught thermodynamic tutorials to help students to acquire basic knowledge.
Experimental measurement techniques: taught lecture on the basics of PIV and PLIF techniques to master and EngD students.
Fluid dynamic: organized and taught laboratory sessions for liquid mixing in industrial system course (LMS) for second year students.

Postgraduate supervision

Federico is involved in different PhD projects of Fluid dynamic and Multiphase research group.

Doctoral research

PhD title: “Blending of Non-Newtonian Fluids in Static Mixers: Assessment Via Optical Methods” The overall technical challenges of this project were the identification of suitable measurements to understand the mixing performance of continuous process device for the blending of fluids with complex rheology. The final aim was to understand how to control and characterise the performance of continuous process for the manufacture of catalyst slurries.

Research

Blending of fluid with complex rheology
Mixing performance and fluid flow of continuous and batch apparatus
Multiphase system
PIV and PLIF technique
PEPT technique

Other activities

Triathlon

Publications

Simmons, M. J. H., Alberini F., Tsoligkas A.N., Gargiuli J., Parker D., Fryer P.J., Robinson S. (2012). "Development of a hydrodynamic model for the UV-C treatment of turbid food fluids in a novel ‘SurePure turbulator™’ swirl-tube reactor." Innovative Food Science & Emerging Technologies 14(0): 122-134

Alberini, F., Simmons M. J. H., Ingram A., Stitt E.H.(2014). "Assessment of different methods of analysis to characterise the mixing of shear-thinning fluids in a Kenics KM static mixer using PLIF." Chemical Engineering Science 112: 152-169.

Alberini, F., Simmons M. J. H., Ingram A., Stitt E.H. (2014). "Use of an areal distribution of mixing intensity to describe blending of non-newtonian fluids in a kenics KM static mixer using PLIF." AIChE Journal 60(1): 332-342.

Alberini, F., Simmons M. J. H., Koutchma T., Parker D. (2015). "Validation of hydrodynamic and microbial inactivation models for UV-C treatment of milk in a swirl-tube ‘SurePure Turbulator™’." Journal of Food Engineering 162(0): 63-69.

Dapelo, D., Alberini F., Bridgeman J. (2015). "Euler-Lagrange CFD modelling of unconfined gas mixing in anaerobic digestion." Water Research 85: 497-511.

Stamatopoulos, K., Batchelor H. K., Alberini F., Simmons M. J. H. (2015). "Understanding the impact of media viscosity on dissolution of a highly water soluble drug within a USP 2 mini vessel dissolution apparatus using an optical planar induced fluorescence (PLIF) method." International Journal of Pharmaceutics 495(1): 362-373.

Stamatopoulos, K., Alberini F., Batchelor H. K., Simmons M. J. H. (2016). "Use of PLIF to assess the mixing performance of small volume USP 2 apparatus in shear thinning media." Chemical Engineering Science 145: 1-9.

Alexiadis, A., Alberini, F., Meyer, M. E. Geopolymers from lunar and Martian soil simulants. Advances in Space Research.

Allouche, M. H., Enjalbert R, Alberini F. et al. "Development of a Combined Solver to Model Transport and Chemical Reactions in Catalytic Wall-Flow Filters." Chemical Engineering Research and Design.

Alberini, F., et al. (2017). "Influence of DC electric field upon the production of oil-in-water-in-oil double emulsions in upwards mm-scale channels at low electric field strength." Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 81: 265-276.

View all publications in research portal