Optimising Removal of Proteinaceous Foulants from Membranes. Removal of proteinacous foulants from membrane systems imposes both significant economic costs in terms of chemical usage as well as significant environmental costs in terms of water usage and production of effluents from the cleaning and rinsing waters. The outcome of this project should allow us to develop methods for the prediction and optimisation of membrane cleaning performance of relevance to major Australian industries includin ....Optimising Removal of Proteinaceous Foulants from Membranes. Removal of proteinacous foulants from membrane systems imposes both significant economic costs in terms of chemical usage as well as significant environmental costs in terms of water usage and production of effluents from the cleaning and rinsing waters. The outcome of this project should allow us to develop methods for the prediction and optimisation of membrane cleaning performance of relevance to major Australian industries including the dairy, food processing and water and waste water treatment industries.Read moreRead less
Understanding and Controlling Wall Deposition in Spray Dryers via Experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Studies. A key problem in operating spray dryers for producing milk powders and other consumer products, such as detergents, is the occurrence of internal wall deposits of powder, leading to thermal degradation of the products and potential fire hazards. However, no fundamental theory has been applied in spray dryers to allow this process to be controlled. The proposed project wi ....Understanding and Controlling Wall Deposition in Spray Dryers via Experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Studies. A key problem in operating spray dryers for producing milk powders and other consumer products, such as detergents, is the occurrence of internal wall deposits of powder, leading to thermal degradation of the products and potential fire hazards. However, no fundamental theory has been applied in spray dryers to allow this process to be controlled. The proposed project will use state-of-the-art experimental and computational techniques to gain a fundamental understanding of this phenomenon and will develop a validated wall deposition model to predict when and to what extent this process occurs, to give higher throughputs and/or more efficient systems.Read moreRead less
Improving Powder Properties by Using Spray Dryers to Process Amorphous Components of Solids into Crystalline Materials. Australia has a large food and dairy processing industry, capturing 13% of the world dairy export market, worth US$460 million annually. This proposal will build on Australia's strengths in dairy and food industries, particularly milk powder products. This project will enhance our competitive advantage in the production of dried foodstuffs by streamlining their production and ....Improving Powder Properties by Using Spray Dryers to Process Amorphous Components of Solids into Crystalline Materials. Australia has a large food and dairy processing industry, capturing 13% of the world dairy export market, worth US$460 million annually. This proposal will build on Australia's strengths in dairy and food industries, particularly milk powder products. This project will enhance our competitive advantage in the production of dried foodstuffs by streamlining their production and allowing tailored and new powder products to be created.Read moreRead less
Multiscale viscoelastic lubrication of soft matter systems. The project aims to develop new principles of viscoelastic lubrication in soft contacts. New insights into friction behaviour arising from complex fluid-substrate interactions are expected to be generated using techniques and interdisciplinary approaches that bridge rheology, tribology and surface science. The intended outcome is a lubrication model that interprets the contribution of viscoelastic effects occurring across multiple lengt ....Multiscale viscoelastic lubrication of soft matter systems. The project aims to develop new principles of viscoelastic lubrication in soft contacts. New insights into friction behaviour arising from complex fluid-substrate interactions are expected to be generated using techniques and interdisciplinary approaches that bridge rheology, tribology and surface science. The intended outcome is a lubrication model that interprets the contribution of viscoelastic effects occurring across multiple length and time scales. This should provide significant benefits to diverse fields including advanced materials and complex fluids, engineering tribology, bio-lubrication and food structure design.Read moreRead less
Dynamic input adjustment to improve the stability of transient swirling flows in spray dryers. This project will use leading-edge numerical techniques to advance the science of flow stabilisation using dynamic flow modulation techniques. Improved sustainable processing will be enabled using this flow modulation in spray dryers to reduce processing problems due to the depositon of particles on dryer walls.
Engineering biomimetic lubrication with mucin. Engineering coatings for water to be an effective lubricant is a significant challenge. The project seeks to emulate how nature builds highly lubricating water-rich polymer films on biological surfaces. This is intended to be achieved by directing the self-assembly of mucin macromolecules onto polymer brushes attached to a substrate, and then cross-linking the constituents to obtain a hydrated gel-like lubricating coating. This research is expected ....Engineering biomimetic lubrication with mucin. Engineering coatings for water to be an effective lubricant is a significant challenge. The project seeks to emulate how nature builds highly lubricating water-rich polymer films on biological surfaces. This is intended to be achieved by directing the self-assembly of mucin macromolecules onto polymer brushes attached to a substrate, and then cross-linking the constituents to obtain a hydrated gel-like lubricating coating. This research is expected to provide new insights on the mechanisms by which mucin-rich fluids lubricate and protect biosurfaces, which is important to human health, nutrition and well-being. It may also lead to new discoveries for engineering surface coatings for biomaterials and nanomaterials.Read moreRead less
Initiation of spontaneous fires. This project aims to determine the origin of the initiation reactions that set off the self-heating of wood chips, coal, milk powder and other economically-important materials, leading to spontaneous fires. This project will provide fundamental understanding of the reactions between electronically excited species of oxygen and carbonaceous fuels, with applications to improved safety in wood, mineral and food industries. The outcomes include identification of the ....Initiation of spontaneous fires. This project aims to determine the origin of the initiation reactions that set off the self-heating of wood chips, coal, milk powder and other economically-important materials, leading to spontaneous fires. This project will provide fundamental understanding of the reactions between electronically excited species of oxygen and carbonaceous fuels, with applications to improved safety in wood, mineral and food industries. The outcomes include identification of the initiation mechanisms and development of mechanistic models that include the initiation step of the self-heating process, and development of new technologies for mitigation of spontaneous fires, based on quenching of the initiation reactions.Read moreRead less