Research Interests @ the University of Hull
Dr Walmsley and Dr Watts

Miniaturisation
Until recently, the greatest research effort in the field of ‘miniaturisation’ has been in analytical science with the main aim of this research being to develop so called miniaturised Total Analytical System (μ-TAS).  Alongside the continuing development of μ-TAS, a concerted effort has also been underway to establish the benefits that micro reactors can bring to the field of reaction chemistry. 

Many chemical reactions have now been demonstrated to show improved reactivity, product yield and selectivity when performed in micro reactors compared to those generated using conventional laboratory practices.  Reactions performed in a micro reactor invariably generate comparatively pure products in high yield, when compared to the equivalent bulk reactions, in much shorter times. One of the immediate and obvious applications is therefore in drug and process discovery, where the generation of compounds either with different reagents or under variable conditions is an essential factor.  However if this is to be effectively realised it is imperative for organic chemists, analytical scientists and chemical engineers to work closely together in order for the chemistry and data analysis to be linked.

Research interests:

Chemometrics and Process Analysis

Hull has a strong background in Chemometrics and Chemical Process Analysis, and the group has published papers in the chemometrics literature on novel mathematical techniques for traditional multivariate calibration, as well as adaptive algorithms applied to kinetics and more recently for calibration free methods, and using DoE techniques for designing the best calibration models. Combining this work in chemometrics and DoE has been research in novel spectroscopic methods for process analysis.

 Research Interests :

Opto-acoustic monitoring and modelling of solids mixing and blending. monitoring in wide frequency range the acoustics emission spectra of mixing and blending solids. Coupling the high resolution and high speed of data acquisition with an adaptive modelling algorithm it has been shown to be possible to determine the end-point of mixing, blending and granulation from the acoustic spectra.

Optimal Design of Experiments for the generation of multivariate calibration models and model update. An effective schema has been developed for automating the development and maintenance of calibration models.
Calibration Free methodology applied to industrial processes. This work has been following on from the success of a CPACT project in which new curve resolution methods were developed at Hull for industrial data (NIR spectra from a gas cell) and this methodology is now being expended into new industries with diverse data types.

Adaptive Modelling of Industrial Chemical Process Data. This work has been extremely fruitful and has resulted in the deployment of an modelling algorithm at the plant (validation trails to end in March 2007)