Newcastle University

Introduction

Previous Positions

Vice President Advanced Technology, Avantium

Founder, MD and Chief Technical Officer of BatchCAD Ltd.

Research Interests

Batch Processing, fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Kinetics, thermochemistry, reactive distillation and process simulation.
Application of GRID (middleware) technologies to chemical process development and particularly for REACH submissions.
Helping to making the UK chemical industry better, safer, greener, more economic and long term sustainable.
I work closely with a colleague Dr Mark Willis. Our research focuses on the development of new enabling technologies for process development. The work is intrinsically multi-disciplinary and systems engineering orientated, spanning chemical engineering, computing science, synthetic and physical chemistry, modelling, simulation, mathematics, statistics and kinetics.
The High Throughput Technologies Research Group (www.ncl.ac.uk/htt)has its own purpose built research lab with state of the art experimental facilities including:
Chemspeed SLT 106 Synthesiser: a highly flexible, modular, and scalable robotic platform used to perform automated unattended parallel multi-step synthesis including reagent preparation, solids dosing, reaction, filtration, extraction, evaporation, work-up, and analysis (via an HPLC interface).
HEL Reaction calorimeter equipped with precision controlled solids, liquid and gas dosing, reflux operation, turbidity and pH monitoring and control.
GCMS and on line HPLC
We are involved in a number of multi-disciplinary research activities as well as consulting work for the commercial sector.

Research themes:

Other Expertise

We provide consulting services through LyraChem (www.lyrachem.com) a joint spin out with Durham University Chemistry. Work ranges across the R&D lifecycle, including chemical route development, mechanism and kinetics determination, scale up and optimisation, thermal safety studies, incident investigation etc.
We also offer a service providing fast reliable and highly effective batch to continuous assessment with the opportunity for pilot trials when appropriate.

Current Work

We are currently involved in a large EPSRC funded research project in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry, University of Durham and the Department of Chemistry, University of Leeds. We are developing the use of robotic workstations to carry out parallel chemical synthesis alongside novel algorithms and software tools to automatically translate the reaction data into a chemical reaction network (reaction mechanism). A reliable reaction mechanism is a prerequisite for the regression of kinetic parameters and the use of process modelling and simulation tools.
Another aspect of our work is GOLD, an EPSRC eScicene Pilot project www.goldproject.ac.uk. Here we are developing GRID based middleware to facilitate chemical process development across national and international organisational boundaries, in effect software to set up manage, and eventually disband a virtual organisation whilst maintaining the need for trust, security and and information management. This work is potentially far reaching, spanning many societal areas outside chemical engineering.

Funding

£2.1m GOLD project
£1.2m Automation of mechanism detemination.

Industrial Relevance

Consultancy

Specialist Expertise
We provide consulting services through LyraChem (www.lyrachem.com) a joint spin out with Durham University Chemistry. Work ranges across the R&D lifecycle, including chemical route development, mechanism and kinetics determination, scale up and optimisation, thermal safety studies, incident investigation etc. We also offer a service providing fast reliable and highly effective batch to continuous assessment with the opportunity for pilot trials when appropriate.

Specialist Equipment
The High Throughput Technologies Research Group (www.ncl.ac.uk/htt)has its own purpose built research lab with state of the art experimental facilities including:
Chemspeed SLT 106 Synthesiser, a highly flexible, modular, and scalable robotic platform used to perform automated unattended parallel multi-step synthesis including reagent preparation, solids dosing, reaction, filtration, extraction, evaporation, work-up, and analysis (via an HPLC interface).
HEL Reaction calorimeter equipped with precision controlled solids, liquid and gas dosing, reflux operation, turbidity and pH monitoring and control.
GCMS and on line HPLC.

Undergraduate Teaching

Process design (Batch Processes)
Thermal safety and thermal runaway.
Reaction calorimetry.

• Grosjean C, Parker J, Thirsk K, Wright AR. Intensified Azeotropic Distillation:A Strategy for Optimizing Direct Amidation. Organic Process Research and Development 2012, 16(5), 781-787.
• Searson DP, Willis MJ, Wright A. Reverse Engineering Chemical Reaction Networks from Time Series Data. In: Dehmer, M., Varmuza, K., Bonchev, D, ed. Statistical Modelling of Molecular Descriptors in QSAR/QSPR. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, 2012, pp.327-348.
• Ilyashenko G, Whiting A, Wright A. A new autocatalytic thioacetate-enal addition reaction: A Michael addition or not?. Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis 2010, 352(11-12), 1818-1825.
• Worth R, Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR, Grace J. The Importance of Mass Transfer in Gas-Liquid Reactions. Chemspeed publications, 2009. Available at: http://www.chemspeed.com/remositoryfunc-startdown/109/remositoryfunc-startdown/109.
• Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR, Grace J. Utilising high throughput technologies for determination of the reaction mechanism of the L-proline catalysed aldol reaction. Chemspeed publications, 2009. Available at: http://www.chemspeed.com/remositoryfunc-startdown/427/remositoryfunc-startdown/427.
• Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR, Grace J. Utilising high throughput technologies for the determination of the reaction mechanism of the L-proline catalysed aldol reaction. Chemspeed publications, 2009. Available at: http://www.chemspeed.com/remositoryfunc-startdown/430/remositoryfunc-startdown/430.
• Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR. Effect of gas-liquid mass transfer rates on the palladium catalysed phenylacetylene oxidative carbonylation reaction. In: AIChE Annual Meeting. 2008, Philadelphia, USA.
• Worth R, Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR. Are high throughput technologies useable for engineering scalability?. In: AIChE Annual Meeting. 2008, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
• Burnham SC, Searson DP, Willis MJ, Wright AR. Inference of chemical reaction networks. Chemical Engineering Science 2008, 63(4), 862-873.
• Todd H, Novakovic K, Willis MJ, Wright AR. Towards predicting catalyst performance in reactive distillation systems. In: AIChE Annual Meeting. 2008, Philadelphia, USA.
• Novakovic K, Mukherjee A, Willis MJ, Wright AR, Scott SK. Using perturbation experiments to study the dynamic behaviour of the palladium-catalysed phenylacetylene oxidative carbonylation. In: Gordon Research Conference on Oscillations and Dynamic Instabilities in Chemical Systems. 2008, Colby College, Waterville.
• Novakovic K, Grosjean C, Scott SK, Whiting A, Willis MJ, Wright AR. Achieving pH and Qr oscillations in a palladium-catalysed phenylacetylene oxidative carbonylation reaction using an automated reactor system. Chemical Physics Letters 2007, 435(1-3), 142-147.
• Searson DP, Willis MJ, Horne SJ, Wright AR. Inference of chemical reaction networks using hybrid s-system models. Chemical Product and Process Modeling 2007, 2(1).
• Periorellis P, Cook N, Hiden H, Conlin A, Hamilton MD, Wu J, Bryans J, Gong X, Zhu F, Wright A. GOLD Infrastructure for Virtual Organisations. In: UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2006. 2006, Nottingham, UK: National e-Science Centre.
• Perioellis P, Cook N, Hiden H, Conlin A, Hamilton MD, Wu J, Bryans J, Gong X, Zhu F, Wright A. The GOLD Project: Architecture, Development and Deployment. In: UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2006. 2006, Nottingham, UK: National e-Science Centre.
• Conlin A, English P, Hiden H, Morris J, Smith R, Wright A. A Computer Architecture to Support the operation of Virtual Organisation for the Chemical Development Lifecycle. In: European Symposium on Computewr Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE). 2005, Barcelona, Spain: Elsevier.
• Wright AR, Morris AJ. Grid based information models to support the rapid innovation of new high value added chemicals. In: Faster Routes to Speciality Chemicals II. 2005, Runcorn, UK.
• Wright AR. Grid Technologies and control of the business process. In: European Fine Chemicals Conference. 2004, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
• Bollyn, M.P Wright, A.R. Development of a Process Model for a Batch Reactive Distillation - A case study. Computers chem Engng 1998, 22, 87-94.
• Goodridge F, Wright AR. Porous Flow Through and Fluidised Bed Electrodes. In: O’M Bockris, J., Conway, B., Yeager, E., White, R.E, ed. A Comprehensive Treatise on Electrochemistry. New York: Plenum Press, 1981.
• CHISHOLM K, MORRIS AJ, NAZER Y, WRIGHT AR. AUTOMATIC-CONTROL OF AN ELECTROCHEMICAL-CELL USED FOR EFFLUENT TREATMENT. In: JOURNAL OF THE ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY. 1980.
• PLIMLEY RE, WRIGHT AR. BIPOLAR MECHANISM FOR CHARGE-TRANSFER IN FLUIDIZED-BED ELECTRODES. In: JOURNAL OF THE ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY. 1980.
• BEJERANO T, GERMAIN S, GOODRIDGE F, WRIGHT AR. THE ELECTROCHEMICAL PRODUCTION OF PROPYLENE-OXIDE IN A SMALL PILOT-PLANT. TRANSACTIONS OF THE INSTITUTION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS 1980, 58(1), 28-32.
• GOODRIDGE F, KING CJH, WRIGHT AR. BEHAVIOR OF BIPOLAR PACKED-BED ELECTRODES. ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA 1977, 22(4), 347-352.
• KING CJH, WRIGHT AR. CURRENT DISTRIBUTION IN A THIN-FILM BIPOLAR ELECTRODE SYSTEM. ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA 1977, 22(10), 1135-1139.
• GOODRIDGE F, KING CJH, WRIGHT AR. PERFORMANCE STUDIES ON A BIPOLAR FLUIDIZED-BED ELECTRODE. ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA 1977, 22(10), 1087-1091.