Liam Parry

Biography

After graduating from Leeds in 2013, Liam worked for TSC in Nottingham. During his master’s Liam really favoured the modules of study around Colloids and Polymers and whilst doing a research project in CFD, Liam realised how useful modelling can be to predict and understand properties of fluids/gases.

PhD: DEM modelling framework for the processing faceted particles incorporating the detailed chemistry of their interfacial interactions (DigiDem)

To manufacture precision drugs with the required bio-physical properties and also to enable the digital design of drug product delivery/performance, it is crucial to optimise and control pharmaceutical production processes. In this, particle/particle and particle/solution interactions govern many of the pharmaceutical manufacturing processes such as crystallisation, washing/filtration, drying, milling, blending, granulation, compaction and tableting etc. Whilst DEM approaches have been widely used for predicting processing behaviour related to particle/particle interactions, the technique, in general, suffers from the assumption that the constituent particles being represented as volume-equivalent spheres. However, this can be unrepresentative as most particles encountered in pharmaceutical processes are non-spherical. Furthermore, due to the different surface chemistry associated with the different faces of crystalline particles, the particle/particle and particle/solution interactions at their interacting interfaces can be expected to be significantly different from one surface to the next. Therefore, an improved, accurate first-principle DEM approach which is able to model these inter-facet interactions can be highly demanding and, to our knowledge, nobody so far has developed DEM approaches which can distinguish between these different interactions on a face-specific basis and their resultant properties on their processing behaviour. Despite this the routine predication of surface energy and, hence, surface properties, of non-spherical particles through software such as Leeds’ VisualHABIT will provide the impetus to use such data with DEM simulations.

The focus will be on the development of a voxel-based DEM approach by introducing voxels (or pixels) to represent facet 3D particles under a DigiDEM software framework, then assigning various surface chemistry/properties for different particle faces/areas. The surface chemistry/properties can be determined from molecular modelling (such as VisualHABIT) and/or experiments. With the defined facet particles, the interactions of particle/particle and particle/solution at the interfaces will be predicted and used to improve the Stokes law and traditional drag force. This will be applied to several case studies involving the sedimentation of facet particles (para-aminobenoic acid, ibuprofen, l-glutamic acid, benzophenone as the potential candidates)

Research Project(s) during degree:

• Turbulent Compressible Flow Modelling for CCS Applications, with Professor Mike Fairweather, Chemical & Process Engineering
  Liam compared multiple CFD models (Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes) against experimental data to prove accuracy before using them to predict the near-field expansion of a CO2 jet. This was to predict how an accidental high pressure release of CO2 would expand (e.g. pipework rupture) to evaluate safety of transporting CO2 to a storage facility.

Industrial experience/placements:

• TSC Simulation Oct 2014 – Sept 2018
  Designing and ‘building’ simulated engineering systems using in house software as part of the engineering team. TSC build simulations to both recreate individual unit operations and full site specific plants for clients.
  Liam’s main role was a simulation engineer, recreating engineering process plants and smaller operations in order to train operatives how to safely operate the control room DCS system (Dynamic Control Screens). This involved working for a number of major international petrochemical and process manufacturers, as well as creating smaller unit operations for training in colleges and universities. Whilst working at TSC Liam was also involved in installation, maintenance and development of a desktop unit, the Three-Phase Separator. The unit features a transparent separator vessel to show how oil and water are separated in industrial applications and is linked to a full DCS simulation to control the physical unit, complete with an ESD system to ensure safety whilst operating.
• Chemence Ltd  Jul 2014 – Sept 2014
  Process operation and control of a Knoevenagel condensation reaction. Worked on the production of the adhesive base ethyl cyanoacrylate, initialising the polymerisation and subsequent cracking into a monomer.

Outreach, training and other activities:

• Vice President of Leeds University Chemical Engineering Society 2011 – 2012

Masters research project in year 1 of CDT:

• ‘In-situ investigation of silica polymerisation’ with Dr Xiaojun Lai, Chemical & Process Engineering