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Fluidization XVII (Edinburgh)

13 July 2023

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The 17th edition of the prime conference series on Fluidization was held in Edinburgh from 21-25 May 2023. It had to be postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but active in-person participation became possible this year.

The conference was organised by Prof Raffaella Ocone from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens (Director of the UCL CNIE), and Prof Paola Lettieri (UCL Chemical Engineering & Pro-Provost UCL East), together with Prof Christine Hrenya (University of Colorado). Fluidization XVII was organised in collaboration with AIChE. Victor Francia, Ali Ozel, Massimiliano Materazzi, and Chris Ness offered support on the Programming Committee.

The focus of the conference was on bridging fundamental research and emerging applications of fluidization technologies, and many presentations focused on challenges related to sustainability, including chemical looping and advances in fluidization to address waste conversion. There were almost 200 participants from academia and industry, with excellent oral and poster presentations.

It was the first time to have any (let alone three!) female co-chairs for this conference. New to the series was a special session on Social Values with presentations and a panel discussion, as well as talks that highlighted diversity interspersed in between the technical fluidization talks.

There were exciting plenaries by Prof Joan Cordiner (University of Sheffield), Prof Takuya Tsuji (Osaka University), Prof Piero Salatino (University of Naples Federico II) and Dr Karl Jacob (DOW).

Shuxian Jiang, PhD student in the NICE Group of the CNIE, presented her latest work on heat transfer in dynamically structured fluidized beds, and Dr Massimiliano Materazzi presented work related to our NOSTOS project.

It was a wonderful occasion to make new acquaintances and see old friends back, including several CNIE Alumni: Dr Kaiqiao Wu, Dr Victor Francia (who was also on the organising committee) and Dr Laurien Vandewalle.

Apart from a rich scientific content, the Scottish Ceilidh dancing with live band and the gala dinner in the beautiful historic Signet Library created indelible bonds amongst the participants.

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