Regular readers of MNM will be aware that the Management and Communications area of the IFRF is staffed by  part time Director Leo Tognotti and by Tracey Biller who is responsible for communications, and has recently been joined by Cristiana Gheorge, our new accounts and administration assistant.  Neil Fricker and Patrick Lavery provide input to this area on a contracting basis, Neil from the UK and Patrick from Sydney Australia.  Neil is also the IFRF’s Superintendent of Research, and is also supporting the IFRF’s input into the recently launched European Biofuels Research Infrastructure (BRISK).

In the last issue of MNM, readers were introduced to the core members of the Livorno Research Team comprising Giovanni Coraggio, Senior Investigator, whose focus is on in-flame measurement techniques, Marco Faleni, IPFR Technician, and Leonardo Biasci, who came to the IFRF from the University of Pisa during his Masters degree studies and has remained as an Investigator.

Users of the IFRF Solid Fuel Database will be familiar with Jarek Hercog who completed a stint at Livorno as an investigator before returning to his native Poland from where he continues his association with the IFRF through ongoing upgrades to the SFDB itself.

Relative newcomers, seconded to the IFRF from the University of Pisa, are Marco Simone and Beatrice Cioni, both PhD graduates.  Marco has particular experience in solid fuels characterization, biomass thermal processing (pyrolysis, combustion and gasification) and liquid biofuels.  For the IFRF, Beatrice is involved in developing an on-line searchable database of second generation thermo-chemical biofuels and physical-chemical characterization of biomass.

In addition there are two “Visiting Researchers” who contribute to the output from Livorno.  They are Enrico Biagini, PhD (Chemical Engineering), Senior Researcher and Project Manager at Consorzio Pisa Ricerche, and Assistant lecturer at University of Pisa (Energy and Chemical Engineering), and Chiara Galletti, Ph.D. (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science) currently Assistant Professor at the University of Pisa (School of Engineering).

Enrico’s areas of expertise include solid fuel characterization (experimental and model activities with coal, biomasses and wastes); combustion and thermochemical processes (gasification, pyrolysis, oxyfiring); process study: e.g., hydrogen production processes.  He is involved in IFRF activities concerning experimental programs and data elaboration of the Isothermal Plug Flow Reactor runs; kinetic model development for solid fuels (coals and biomasses); devolatilization and oxidation; solid fuel database upgrading and updating.

Chiara, who has also been a “Visiting Research Associate” at the King’s College London, UK, is mainly interested in the development of methods of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for reactive turbulent flow, with particular attention to MILD and oxy-fuel combustion.  For IFRF Chiara is involved in the CFD modeling of FoSper experiments (Validation of combustion modelling for practical combustion systems), the qualification of IPFR through CFD, and the analysis of signals from ODC optical technique in IPFR.  She will also be involved in some of the activities for the H2 Low-NOxgas turbine burner development.

In the short term, the IFRF research team at Livorno is due to be strengthened further by the addition of another full time investigator who will fulfil the specific requirements of the BRISK and RELCOM  projects.

The contacts page on the IFRF webpage is currently being updated.  By the end of this week you will be able to contact any of the individuals named in this article via http://www.ifrf.net/staff/