The University of Sheffield
Chemical and Biological Engineering

Mr Pratik Desai

AMI, ChemE,  GradEI, AMInstP

Email: p.desai@shef.ac.uk
Tel: 0114 2227540

Link: NPL

Supervisor:
Professor W.B.J. Zimmerman

Research Group:
Process Fluidics - Microfluidics

Research

The research project is based on increasing the regeneration performance of the liquid catholyte used in FlowCath TM via microbubbles and plasma activation. It also involves the miniaturisation of the Tesar-Zimmerman Fluidic Oscillator and the application of the per actuated Memoli- Zimmerman device to the system .Realisation of the MZ device was part of my Master's Project. It also involves acoustic and photonic methods for non-invasive methods of characterisation. Heterogeneous Catalysis is another aspect of the project.

Biography

I completed my MEng in Chemical Engineering with Fuel Technology in July 2012, graduating with a First Class Honours degree at The University of Sheffield.

I am currently a KTP Research Associate with ACAL Energy - A company specialising in PEM Fuel Cells, and am also reading for a PhD aimed to increase the performance of the catholyte during it's regeneration cycle.

I am an amateur Master of Ceremonies and have professionally hosted several events for charity and otherwise for various organisations.

My Master's Thesis was titled: Ultrasound mediated drug delivery system via microbubbles and was done in conjunction with the National Physical Laboratory.

I dabble in a lot of research areas such as: 

  • Biomedical Drug delivery
  • Acoustics, Bioprocessing & Proteomics
  • Gasification and Pyrolysis
  • Microbubbles - Characterisation and Generation
  • Psychology
  • Intellectual Property Rights
  • Microfluidics
  • Plasma
  • Inverse Problems
  • Quantum Mechanical systems
  • Computational Modelling
  • Philosophy
  • Art
  • History
  • Economics

and most other things interest me as I am a fundamentally curious bugger.

I have been brought up in most of South East Asia, so I am quite fond of travelling and encountering people from a multitude of cultural backgrounds.

I currently chair the Industrial Biotechnology Group and also chairman of the InQuizitive Society.

Publications:

PANDHAL, J., DESAI, P., WALPOLE, C., DOROUDI, L., MALYSHEV, D. & WRIGHT, P. C. Systematic metabolic engineering for improvement of glycosylation efficiency in Escherichia coli. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.
Link