Phd in CHEMICAL PROCESSES FOR INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT

email: paola.russo@uniroma1.it
phone: +390644585565
building: RM038
room: 404

Paola Russo is Associate Professor of Industrial and Technological Chemistry at Department of Chemical Engineering, Materials, Environment of University of Roma "La Sapienza". She was graduated on 1995 in Chemical Engineering at Faculty of Engineering of University of Napoli Federico II, with a final mark of 110 cum laude/110. In the 1996 she won a thesis prize from Kuwait Raffinazione e Chimica. On 1998 she was at Delft University of Technology as visiting research assistant. On march 1999 she got a PhD in Engineering of Thermomechanical Systems at University of Napoli Federico II. On april 1999 she got a Post-Doc grant in "Energy, Environment and Materials" at University of Salerno. From february 2001 to december 2008 she was Assistant Professor of Industrial and Technological Chemistry as winner of a competitive examination at University of Salerno. On June 2006 she was qualified as Associate Professor of Industrial and Technological Chemistry at University of Padova. From 2009 to 2012 she was Associate Professor of Industrial and Technological Chemistry at Faculty of Engineering of University of Salerno. On 2017 she obtained the National Professorship Qualification as Full Professor.
She is member of GRICU Group of Researchers in Chemical Engineering, AIF Association of Forensic Engineering.
Member of the Italian Working Group "Algorithms for the detection of fire safety distances in installations for the supply of alternative fuels for motor vehicles" (2016), and “Update of the technical regulation of fire prevention for the design, construction and operation of hydrogen distribution systems for motor vehicles of Ministerial Decree 31.08.2006" (2017).
Co-Chair of Colloquium "Detonations, Explosions and Supersonic Combustion" of the Thirty-sixth International Symposium on Combustion Seoul, Korea, 31 July - 5 August, 2016. Co-Chair of Symposium on Computational Combustion for ICCMSE 2016- 12th International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences And Engineering, Athens, Greece, 17-20 March 2016. Member of Scientific Advisory Board of the X ISHPMIE-Tenth International Symposium on Hazards, Prevention and Mitigation of Industrial Explosions, Bergen, Norway, 10-14 June 2014.

Research activity
Research concentrates on the fire and explosion safety of hydrogen vehicles and electric vehicles and of the related infrastructures (i.e. hydrogen, natural gas, electricity).
She has more than 10 years’ experience in fire and explosion safety research. Research interest and skills are in:
• CFD modelling and simulations, including fires in tunnels;
• quantitative risk assessment for critical infrastructures, including gas pipelines;
• fire experiments on Lithium-ion batteries;
• experimental analysis of gas, dust and hybrid explosions;
• analytical modelling of explosion mitigation and protection systems for industrial equipment;
• modelling and simulations of propagation of wildland fires, etc.
Previous research activity area was in environmental catalysis and energy production. With regard to the first, the activity concerned the study of catalytic systems for the abatement of soot particulate from diesel engine exhaust. As a result, a prototype for bench-scale engine tests was realized. With regard to the energy production, the research was focused on the study of the performances of different solid fuels: coals, biomasses and their blends.
Currently, another subject of research activity is in the area of Food Engineering. My studies are relevant to:
• development of (chemical or physical) pretreatments for optimize the drying process of food in order to increase the shelf-life;
• the application of membrane processes for the dealcoholisation of beverages (i.e. wine, beer).

Author of about 200 publications. h-index: 23; n. publications: 101; total citations: 1489 (Scopus: 17 march 2019).
Author of the Italian Patent N. 0001417526 Almerinda Di Benedetto, Andrea Bizzarro, Paola Russo, Roberto Sanchirico, Valeria Di Sarli “Apparato per le prove di infiammabilità ed esplosività di polveri uniformemente disperse” (2015)
Reviewer for Elsevier of book "Dust Explosion Dynamics" di Russell A. Ogle, 2014
Guest Editor of Special Issue of the Catalysis Today journal “Environmental Catalysis: A Step
Forward” vol 75, 1-4, 2002.

Awards
Top Cited Paper Award for 2011 and 2012 for the paper "Dust/gas mixtures explosion regimes” Powder Technology, 2011, Volume 205, pp. 81-86
Top Cited Paper Award for 2010 and 2011 of the paper: “Experimental analysis of gas explosions at non-atmospheric initial conditions in cylindrical vessel” Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 2010, Volume 88, pp. 341-349.
1996 thesis prize from Kuwait Raffinazione e Chimica.

Research Projects
Scientific Responsible
- 2019 Horizon 2020 HyTunnel-CS project (FCH-04-1-2018) “PNR for safety of hydrogen driven vehicles and transport through tunnels and similar confined spaces” Coordinator: prof. V. Molkov, University of Ulster, UK. (start date 1 March 2019). 3 years.
- 2019 University Fund “ZEPROMEM: Integrated zero emission industrial membrane process development for low-alcohol beer production and reuse of wastes”. 3 years
- 2017 Program Agreement 2015-2017 Ministry of Economic Development – ENEA -
for the Research on Electrical System “Sustainable electricity mobility - the recharge of electric vehicles: HRR measurements for modeling safety distances”. 1 year
- 2017 FFARB- Fund for the financing of basic research activities. 1,5 years
- 2016 Program Agreement 2015-2017 Ministry of Economic Development – ENEA -
for the Research on Electrical System “Sustainable electricity mobility - the recharge of electric vehicles: preliminary study to modeling safety distances”. 1 year
- 2013 University Fund “Membrane technologies for recovery and separation of volatile fatty acids in integrated biorefining processes”. 1 year
- 2012 University Fund “Analysis and mitigation of consequences of incidental scenarios related to the Transport of Hazardous Substances”. 2 years
- 2005 Regione Campania L. R. 5/02 “Evaluation of dust explosion risk in food industry”. 1 year.
- 2000 CNR Agenzia 2000 “Catalytic abatement of soot assisted by microwaves”. 1,5 years.