EFCE Announces Product Design Award Winner

(L-R): Professor Jean-Marc Le Lann, EFCE Scientific VicePresident; Dr. Stefan Kaufmann, Beiersdorf AG; Assistant Professor Arab Belkadi; Dr. Jens Uhlemann, Chairman of EFCE Section on Product Design and Engineering. (photography by Alicia Garcia)

The European Federation of Chemical Engineering has awarded Arab Belkadi its 2017 Excellence Award in Product Design and Engineering for his PhD thesis on “Experimental Study of Liquid-Liquid Fractionation in Microchannels for the Continuous Production of Emulsified Biodiesel.” Arab Belkadi, who now is an assistant Professor in the department of mechanical engineering, Mouloud Mammeri University, Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria, wrote the thesis while completing his doctorate at the University of Nantes, France.

Arab Belkadi designed a microfluidic mixer that continuously emulsifies water in liquid biofuel and integrated it into the combustion process. The dispersed water phase helps to optimize combustion, thus decreasing particle emissions, while also reducing combustion temperature and thus minimizing NOx emissions.

He received the award, which includes a €1,500 cash prize, during the 10th World Congress of Chemical Engineering, which was held in Barcelona, Spain, in early October.

More details can be found here.