Professor Will Zimmerman
BScEng, MSc, PhD, CEng FIChemE
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Professor of Biochemical Dynamical Systems


+44 114 222 7517
Full contact details
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Kroto LG16
North Campus
Broad Lane
葫芦影业
S3 7HQ
- Profile
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I'm a graduate of Princeton and Stanford Universities in Chemical Engineering and the author of over 200 scientific publications. Previously I was Director of the MSc in Environmental and Energy Engineering, and a winner in US and UK national competitions of five prestigious fellowships (2005-6 Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow, 2000-5 EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow; 1994-99 Royal Academy of Engineering, Zeneca Young Academic Fellow; 1991-93 visiting professorships appointed by the French Ministry of Education at the Littoral University in Dunkirk in 1998 and 2005.
I was interviewed on my algal biofuels work on BBC Radio 4 鈥淢aterial World with Quentin Cooper鈥. My Royal Academy of Engineering SRF, entitled 鈥淪ystems Biology and Chemical Engineering鈥 has laid down a protocol for optimal experimentation for bioreactor model-building via inverse methods. I directed Microfluidics 2003, a workshop at CISM in Udine from which he edited a book on microfluidics, and is the author of two bestselling texts on multiphysics modelling.
- Research interests
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Having several patent families that exploit energy efficient microbubbles generated by fluidic oscillation, my team explores and innovates with new technology / capability where the role of microbubbles can be crucial to intensification, acceleration, or mechanistic change to bio/chemical processing -- typically in symbiotic engineering or novel simultaneous reactive (fermentative) separations.
Key research interests:
- Energy efficient generation of microbubbles and their applications (particularly biofuels and bioreactors)
- Plasma microreactors, especially low power consumption generation of ozone
- Fluid dynamics of helical turbulence and mixing
- Thin film dynamics and microrheometry
- Computational modelling with inverse methods (digital twinning)
Perlemax Ltd.
, University spinout company, was founded to exploit his research and technological advances. Perlemax and Zimmerman have won the below awards/recognition:
- Publications
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Books
Journal articles
Chapters
Conference proceedings papers
Patents
Preprints
- Professional activities and memberships
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- 2009 IChemE Moulton Medal
- 2010 Royal Society Innovation Award (Brian Mercer Fund) ()
- 2010 CleanTech Open, AXA UK Global Ideas Champion
- 2010 CleanTech Open, International Finalist, Global Ideas
- 2011 Zayed International Future Energy Prize, Semifinalist
Feature article in The Times of London heralded the solution (microbubbles did it!) to the age old Mpemba effect. Subsequently published four journal articles and gave a keynote address at the 15th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics on the topic of microbubble enhanced het transfer: Cracked, the cold case of why boiling water freezes faster