Ed Lester

Biography

Ed started out as Marine Chemist as an undergraduate before taking on a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Since then he has been busy working at the interface between chemistry and engineering. His PhD entitled "Characterisation of Coals for Combustion" was directed towards the potential environmental and economic impact of increasing imports of foreign coals into the UK around the early 90's. As part of this work he developed several industrially relevant characterisation techniques and an international standing as a petrographer focussed on solving problems for power generators. Several of these techniques involve automated image analysis and microscopy which is used to summarise complex particulate structures into meaningful data for assessing combustion potential. He has also carried out consultancy on supercritical water reactor design for chemical synthesis. As part of his image analysis expertise, he has also worked with the FBI on a face recognition project, the Department of Transport on a road characterisation project and Akzo Nobel on a project characterising intumescent materials.

Research Interest

Ed has been working with supercritical fluids for the last 8 years with a particular focus on supercritical water reactor design. His background in image analysis techniques helped to solve the blockage problems that occur during continuous hydrothermal synthesis. This process involved the instantaneous mixing of a cold aqueous metal salt with a superheated water stream. The final solution came in the form of a pipe in pipe counter current reactor which is now patented. He is Technical Director of a new spin out company from the University of Nottingham called Promethean Particles Ltd. He has also been working in the National Centre for Industrial Microwave Processing use microwaves to create supercritical water. Two patents have been filed on this area that economically and selectively produces supercritical water for waste destruction, nanomaterial generation and chemical synthesis. His original work on fossil fuel combustion is still ongoing with new projects on biomass/coal blend co-firing and spontaneous combustion.