In this context, we produced thermoresponsive ionic exchange adsorbents via 'grafting from' polymerisation, and consequently applied them to a novel travelling cooling zone reactor (TCZR). Sepharose CL-6B, Superose 6 prep grade, and Superose 12 prep grade were selected as the base matrices in order to find the most suitable particle size and pore diameter for the modification with thermoresponsive polymer. Both cation exchange adsorbents (thermoCEX) and anionic exchange adsorbents (thermoAEX) modified with poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) or pNIPAAm were introduced in Chapter 2, 3, and 5. All resins' binding affinity and maximum adsorption capacity increased with elevated temperature, however, the protein 'adsorption-desorption' behaviour of thermoCEX is much superior to that of thermoAEX. We also introduced cation exchange adsorbents with poly( ethylene glycol) or PEG in Chapter 4, although the thennoresponsiveness of thermoCEX-PEG-S6PG has been found even better than those of thermoCEX, the dynamic protein binding performance is limited due to its relatively lower protein binding capacity at higher temperature.

High ratio cake formulations such as sponges and cupcakes are well appreciated by the market due to their favourable attributes like sweet taste, moist mouthfeel, and tender texture. To bake a successful cake of such kind, it is necessary to change flour functionality. This can be done by dry heat treatment. The aim of this work was to investigate the dry heat treatment of flour and to implement it on a novel thermal processing equipment, the Revtech system, for the production of high ratio cake flour. For this purpose, flour was heat treated in lab-scale experiments at accurately controlled time-temperature conditions. The effect of heat on flour functionality was evaluated with a variety of analytical methods, e.g. the Rapid-Visco-Analyser (RVA) or the rheometer. The Revtech system is presented for the continuous heat treatment of flour. Particles are conveyed through helical pipes by vibrations and the pipe walls are heated by resistive heating. Residence time distributions were determined depending on process parameters and shown to be narrow. The residence time was generally found to increase during extended periods of operation, which was related to the deposition of a powder layer inside the pipe. Temperature distributions of pipe and flour flow were characterised. After flour heat treatment in the Revtech equipment, high ratio cakes were baked and analysed. A method was developed to compare the results to lab-scale experiments. The time-temperature history of flour was described in terms of equivalent, constant treatment times and temperatures, which may be correlated to cake quality attributes. The approach is industrially relevant for the development of a cake flour specification and the facilitation of process validation.

Multilayered films are formed via coextrusion when separately extruded polymer melt streams come together in either an injector block linked to a die or a multi-manifold die. As multilayered film structures increase in complexity it becomes more difficult to control the individual layer thickness control, STAR-CCM+ computational fluid dynamics software was used to model both coextrusion geometrics and polymer melt flows. The comparative ability of the injector block and multi-manifold die systems to handle increasingly wide melt viscosity ratios was investigated numerically. It was found that the multi-manifold die was the better option when producing films with wide melt viscosity ratios. Experimental validations using die plug analysis, chloroform washing, light microscopy and white light interferometry were conducted to test the accuracy and relevance to reality of the numerical results. Excellent agreement was generally found between both experimental and numerical data. The good agreement between experimental and numerical results was used to predict the outcome of two pilot trials. Using computational fluid dynamics, it was found that the pilot edge heaters are located too far from the edges to improve the thickness profile here. However, on a production scale multi-manifold die the film edges significantly improved.

Water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double emulsion systems provide an innovative approach for the development of low-fat healthier foods. By replacing a proportion of the oil phase of a simple oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion with an internal water phase, the overall oil volume within the emulsion system can be decreased, with potentially negligible changes to its organoleptic properties. However, double emulsions are notoriously unstable for adequate periods of time, largely due to the existence of two oppositely curved water-oil (W/O) and oil-water (O/W) interfaces in close proximity. The present study investigates the use of Pickering stabilisation in order to enhance the stability of double emulsions. Pickering stabilisation mechanisms are reputed for superior, longer term stabilisation capacities when compared to conventional surfactant stabilised emulsions, but edible particles with Pickering functionality are scarce. The work in this thesis explores the impact of introducing Pickering stabilisation to a double emulsion structure, initially at only one of the two water/oil interfaces (either W/O or O/W) and ultimately across the entire interfacial areas. Initial work conducted centred on investigating the role of a range of edible particulates as potential Pickering stabilisers in simple emulsions (both W/O and O/W emulsion types). Based on the knowledge gained from these studies, a range of Pickering-Surfactant stabilised double emulsions (with particles or surfactant stabilising alternate interfaces), using a range of surfactants, and Pickering only stabilised double emulsion systems were prepared and analysed in terms of their microstructure, stability and encapsulation efficiencies.

The work presented within this thesis focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and processing of novel materials for use within solid oxide fuel cells. A range of perovskite materials, previously shown to have potential for solid oxide fuel cell applications, were selected for further studies. These included LaMnO\(_3\), SrFeO\(_{3-δ}\) and Sr\(_{0.8}\)Ti\(_{0.6}\)Nb\(_{0.4}\)O\(_{3-δ}\). These materials were doped with various dopants, including cations such as V\(^{5+}\) and Ti\(^{4+}\) and also SiO\(_4\)\(^{4-}\) oxyanions. Once doped, the materials were analysed by X-ray powder diffraction and underwent testing to ascertain their suitability for use as solid oxide fuel cell electrodes. This included identifying structural stability in anode conditions alongside thermal expansion studies. Overall, improvements over undoped samples were noted, especially for Sr\(_{0.8}\)Ti\(_{0.6}\)Nb\(_{0.4}\)O\(_{3-δ}\) samples doped with V\(^{5+}\) and SrFeO\(_{3-δ}\) samples doped with SiO\(_4\)\(^{4-}\), although LaMnO\(_3\) doped with Ti\(^{4+}\) proved less successful. Production methods for the formation of microtubular solid oxide fuel cells were also investigated. Powder processing for paste formation was examined, for subsequent use in extrusion. The extrusion process was also investigated, alongside debinding and sintering studies. The development of a reliable and repeatable process for cell production proved difficult, especially on a smaller scale necessary to facilitate the testing of novel materials.

In modern Internal Combustion (IC) engines, the fuel spray atomization process is known to play a key role in affecting mixture formation, combustion efficiency and soot emissions. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the fuel spray characteristics and atomization process is of great importance. In this study, the fuel spray of modern Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) engines and diesel engines has been experimentally and numerically studied. At the same time, optimized physical-numerical spray breakup models for the spray simulation have been developed and validated.

As the focus of research on ‘adaptive/responsive’ surfaces has in recent years contributed strongly towards the design of surface materials with ‘intelligent’ or ‘smart’ behaviour, current superparamagnetic adsorbents being employed both in small and large scale operations can be surface modified and improved by gaining dual functionalities. In this work, modification of M-PVA supports with polymer brushes of dual properties has been explored for their intended use in bioseparation technology, i.e. for both selectively protein binding and enhanced temperature elution of especially difficult to elute species such as haemoglobin. Tethering of polymer brushes was achieved by employing two different ‘grafting from’ routes, i.e. cerium (IV) initiated polymerisation and Atom Transfer Polymerisation Reaction (ATRP). By identifying the optimum cerium (IV) reaction conditions, the said chemistry was further utilised to attach different polymers (thermoresponsive and affinity ligands) and their combination (thermo-affinity) at fixed positions onto M-PVA supports, either as di-block or mixed functionality polymer brushes. The configuration of introduced polymer chains as well as the haemoglobin binding characteristics of the above materials was evaluated, and their efficiency for haemoglobin and GFP desorption via sequential temperature transitions was demonstrated. Mixed polymer brushes manufactured using sequential ATRP after partial bromination of AGE activated magnetic supports were characterised and tested likewise. Protein binding and release efficiency was dependent on brush configuration (length and spacing between the graft sites of polymers), pNIPAAm content, type of affinity ligand and type of protein employed. From the above materials those with polymer chains of sufficient pNIPAAm length and at such spacing allowing their ‘free’ expansion/collapse upon temperature change (especially those grafted via cerium (IV) route) were found efficient, as brush behaviour favour enhanced desorption of difficult to elute species.

An artificial liposome membrane system has been employed for in vitro screening of the human absorption of biologically active molecules for applications in nutrition and drug treatments. Initial work with molecules having small permeabilities demonstrated that they could not be measured using the technique since they were absorbed by the membrane. A critical innovation was to pre-treat the membrane by equilibrating it with the molecule of interest since this avoids the absorption problem but required more complex data analysis. Bioactive molecules with strong antioxidant and anti-cancer activity extracted from green tea showed a strong affinity to the membrane, which suggests that this significantly limits bioavailability. Ethanol but not dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was found to enhance the diffusion of paracetamol, theophylline, acyclovir, nadolol and amphotericin B. The potential synergistic effect on the diffusion of paracetamol in the presence of caffeine was investigated but it was shown to have a detrimental effect. Finally, an effective protection of Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) from the environment was achieved by the preparation of beeswax microspheres as a carrier.

The creation of drops from the growth of surface tension instabilities on the surface of liquid jets has been exploited in many industrial applications. Curved jets are relevant to prilling, which creates small spherical pellets from molten material. There is a need to optimise the process to produce pellets of uniform size. The dynamics of the break-up of curved jets is examined, with experiments investigating the effect of scale, rheology and surface tension, with particular focus on pseudoplastic liquids, using laboratory and pilot-scale facilities. The experiments were compared to previous work on Newtonian fluids, and existing numerical simulations, which use the method of finite differences to solve non-linear evolution equations for jet radius and axial velocity. The effect of non-Newtonian rheology on the trajectory of the jet and linear instability are determined using computational and asymptotic methods. The droplet sizes produced by this instability are determined by considering the most unstable wave mode. This enables quantitative comparison with the experiments. The influence of multiple disturbance frequencies (imparted by mechanical vibrations) on the break-up of curved Newtonian jets is investigated. Experimental data was compared with existing numerical models, to see if it is possible to predict where satellite droplets are eradicated.

The research in this thesis aimed to study efficiency and viability of supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) technology in treating diluted N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU) and ammonia containing model wastewaters that were selected due to their hazard, wide usage in industry and having different degrees of refractoriness. A lab-scale SCWO tubular reactor was operated to obtain necessary data to investigate the destruction of selected compounds at certain operating conditions in addition to studying the oxidation kinetics of DMF and DBU. Also, Isopropyl Alcohol was used to enhance the destruction of treating DMF, DBU and ammonia. Results showed that temperature was the most influential variable where near complete TOC removal was obtained during DMF and DBU oxidation at 525oC and 250 bars. Temperatures of 400-550oC were not enough to achieve a significant destruction for ammonia. Organic concentrations and oxidant ratios also showed positive effects on the destruction of DMF, DBU and ammonia. IPA showed an essential role to destroy DMF, DBU and ammonia when used where a TOC removal of 99.4% and 99.2% was achieved for DMF and DBU respectively at 525oC and 250 bars and maximum TN removal of 97% was obtained at 550oC and 250 bars during ammonia oxidation. Also the presence of IPA reduced the activation energy of treated compounds where the values were 21.9 and 25.7 kJ/mol for DMF and DBU, respectively. Also it was found that oxygen has an influence and with oxygen order of 0.38 and 0.32 for DMF and DBU respectively.