• Letter from the IFRF President

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      espadmin

Dear Members, Colleagues and Friends of the IFRF,

This is a very important day for the IFRF. From today on, the Headquarters of the IFRF are officially in Tuscany, Italy!

The formal decisions regarding the move to Italy by the IFRF Joint Committee meeting in June have now been fully realized.  The IFRF’s Velsen office and its facilities have been moved to Pisa and Livorno. Quite extensive legal arrangements have all been put in place. The IFRF is now formally an Italian Foundation with the name Fondazione Internazionale per la Ricerca sulla Combustione- IFRF. The IFRF Joint Committee controls this foundation in the same way as previously when the Foundation was in Holland. The University of Pisa and ENEL Ricerca provide local support for the IFRF activities in Italy, while ENEL Ricerca in Livorno has taken over from Corus IJmuiden the task of hosting the IFRF Headquarters.

Today is also the first official working day of our new Director, Professor Leonardo Tognotti. Leo has already been heavily involved in preparing for the IFRF move, but today he will officially take over the lead from our Interim Director Neil Fricker. Professor Leonardo Tognotti has an established and successful career in fundamental and applied research in combustion, environmental protection and industrial processes. He is a full professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. The IFRF has previously cooperated with Professor Tognotti in two EU Consortium Projects.

We wish Leo all success in his new important job!

The transition from IJmuiden to Livorno has been quite a challenge to all involved. The number of details that needed to be solved before our fifty plus year old Foundation could be moved were literally hundreds – some of them quite complicated. Creative solutions have been required and also a lot of patience. However, the whole process of moving the organization has happened efficiently and in a pleasant and optimistic atmosphere. On behalf of the whole organization thanks a lot to the IFRF teams at Velsen and Pisa/Livorno.

Now after these updates a final greeting to all member colleagues. If you have felt that lately you have not been very active in participating at the IFRF events, now is the right time to get activated! Now you can influence the course of the development of the organization.  And the development looks very promising – a lot is happening.

The new Members’ Research Program will be started in due course. The IFRF has been relocated next to the Livorno laboratory of ENEL, where it will have immediate access to a very wide range of semi-industrial scale experimental combustion test facilities capable of firing the full range of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. These facilities include a replica of the IJmuiden No 1 furnace, as well as the full scale high pressure gas turbine combustion rigs at ENEL’s Sesta centre. The facilities will be available for undertaking the IFRF Members Research Programme and Members’ test work over the whole range of industrial process sectors, and on a confidential basis.

Please keep an eye on the Monday Night Mail for announcements of when and how you can become part of that program.

Also, please make sure you have in your calendar the next main event: the Members Conference in June 2007 (week 24). The conference will be held in Pisa/Livorno so you will have the opportunity to visit the research facilities and the new office. And please don’t overlook TOTeM 29 which will happen in Munich on October 12th &13th. This will give IFRF Members and prospective members an opportunity to review the state of the art and the future R&D needs relating to co-combustion of biofuels (more information on   http://www.calendar.ifrf.net/event.html?id=191 ). The following week in North America, we also look forward to the 2006 AFRC International Symposium ‘Revamp and Innovative Design of Fired Equipment’ (more information on  http://www.calendar.ifrf.net/event.html?id=169   )

I am convinced that the Spirit of IJmuiden has survived the move very well, and will continue inspiring our work into the future – and hopefully will get some additional support from some pleasant Spirit of the Mediterranean!

Mikko Hupa, President, IFRF