News from TPR

News from TPR Group

January 25, 2010

Four new books have just been published based on recent PhD theses from our TPR Group. They are announced under New Books of this site. Congratulations are due to Atiq, Hee Joo, Zhonghua and Xiangqi! Two additional theses are under consideration currently for publication in book format.
Dr Meng Wai Woo received his PhD formally from UKM. Congratulations, Woo! He is currently doing his postdoctoral research at Monash University, Australia, under Prof. Dong Chen.
Xiangqi Wang is proud father of a baby boy! Hearty congratulations, Xiangqi and Yin Yin!
Drying Technology journal has been so successful that it is full for 2010. We are unable to accept papers even for review and submissions are being deflected to other journals. We will now follow the iFirst model of journal publication. Accepted papers will receive DOI numbers and will be available electronically before they appear in print format.
Sachin Jangam is complimented for editing an artistic compilation of the artwork of Prof. Mujumdar in the form of a book presented to him as a birthday present on January 14^th 2010.
It includes great quotations and messages from various family members and students as well as associates. This will be available on the web for free downloading some time next month.
An e-book entitled tentatively Mujumdar on Innovation and R&D is being edited and should also be available by early March 2010 on this and several other websites. Printed versions will also be available in due time.
Meng Wai Woo and Sachin Jangam are editing e-books on spray drying and food drying, respectively. Excellent response has been received to both projects.
Dr Wu Zhonghua has joined Tianjin University of Science & Technology as Professor.
A number of papers have been accepted by journals and major conferences recently. Congratulations are due to Xu Peng, Wu Zhonghua, Atiq, Agus, Karthik, Meng Wai, Chung Lim Law and Jundika for having their papers/book chapters or conference papers accepted in the last few weeks.
Sachin has compiled a list of most of the conference papers of TPR Group during 2009. It is hard to keep this up-to-date due to continuous increase in the number of acceptances etc. This is a good problem to have. Click here for the list.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR VISITORS!

December 28, 2009

As 2009 ends and 2010 begins members of TPR wish all visitors to this site a very happy, healthy, productive and peaceful 2010!

Prof. Arun S. Mujumdar was the Chief Guest and Keynote Speaker at the recent International Conference on Issues and Challenges in Energy Conversion and Management held at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi,India in December 2009. There was considerable press coverage of this conference. He was interviewed by several press correspondents. He also wrote the Foreword to the book that was published by Narosa Publishers, India on the occasion of this conference.
Dr Atiq Rahman's thesis is the first to appear in book format out of 4 theses selected for publication in this form by a German publisher.
IDS2010 promises to be a major success even after 32 years since Prof. Mujumdar founded the series at McGill University with the vision of continuing it until the end of 1990! Clearly his vision was not 20:20! Over 450 abstracts have arrived well before the extended deadline from some 50 countries.
Seven major drying events were held globally in 2009- all of them successes with ADC09 held in Bangkok in October attracting the largest number of papers and participants. Clearing drying R&D is far from a sunset area!
Dr Wu Zhonghua has joined Tianjin University of Science & Technoloy, Tianjin as a Full Professor. Congratulations,Zhonghua! Our member Dr Li Xian Huang is Full Professor in Nanjing for several years now.
TPR Group presented and published a very large number of papers in 2009. Sachin has compiled a list,including pdfs of most papers. These can be obtained from TPR on request.
4th WFCFD will be held in Mumbai in February 2010. As usual, it will consist of several new speakers and themes of industry interest in filtration, crystallization and drying. This is a unique series founded by Prof.Thorat of ICT,Mumbai and Prof.Mujumdar after successsful organization of IWSID2004 in Mumbai.
Drying Technology journal is now full for the entire volume of 2010- 12 issues! This seems to be a record in itself although not one I planned to set. The global activity level in this area is rising especially with concerns over energy.
As you know two new e-book projects are now on from TPR Group. One is on Spray Drying and the oher on Food Dehydration.Both have attracted high quality authorship. This will be a major professional service of TPR Group. I hope others elsewhwre will be motivated by its success.
A bit of interesting statistic - our group reviewed over 250 journal papers during 2009 alone! A huge ananymous service by itself! Thanks everyone.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR
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November 21, 2009

Poh Hee Joo has submitted his final PhD thesis and can soon be addressed as Dr.Poh Hee Joo! Congratulations, Hee Joo.
Four PhD theses from TPR Group will soon appear as hardcover books/monographs thanks to a German publisher. Congratulations, Atiq, Zhonghua, Xiangqi and Hee Joo! Earlier Sakamon's 2001 PhD thesis was published in same form last year.
Prof. Mujumdar will present a keynote lecture in Varanasi at an International Energy Conference in December 2009. Dr Erik Birgersson will also a be a keynote speaker at this conference with Prof.Mujumdar as co-author.
Sachin Jangam will defend his PhD thesis in Mumbai in early December. He has compiled a CD of most of TPR groups conference papers presented in 2009. If you want a copy please contact him. Again in 2009 we have a record number of journal papers, conference papers and book chapters.
TPR members are working on three e-books on spray drying, food drying and processing. This is a professional service making latest results available free all over the globe
Karthik Somasundaram has passed his PhD proposal defense. Congrats, Karthik!
Dr Wu Zhonghua will leave NUS/M3TC on December 1st 2009. He will start as full Professor at Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin, where Professor Mujumdar has been an honorary professor since 1984.
Prof. Maria Laura Passos has just published a book on Innovation in Food Processing in which TPR has two chapters. Dr Sakamon has also a book awaiting publication in a related area. A number of TPR groupmembers now have edited or authored books in recent years. Farsi translation of the Drying Guide is now ready and awaiting publication in Iran thanks to Dr Salem Banooni.
December 1, 2009 is strict deadline for abstracts for IDS2010 in Germany.

October 28, 2009

Sachin Jangam has joined TPR Group. He is a Research Fellow with M3TC. He is preparing a research proposal on innovative cost-effective dehydration technology for low rank coals. Welcome to TPR, Sachin!
ADC09 was held in Bangkok Oct. 19-21, 2009. Over 120 papers were presented at this 6^th and final Drying event of 2009. Dr Sakamon Devahastin was the Program Chair. Prof. Mujumdar presented a plenary lecture entitled “Drying R&D: Past, Present & Future”. His paper on history of IDS and Drying Technology journal is available in ADC09 proceedings. TPR and its collaborators presented 8 papers at ADC09.
Sachin Jangam was presented with the Young Researcher Award at ADC09. Congratulations, Sachin! Click here for a picture of the Award diploma- the artwork associated with each one of the awards was done by Prof. Mujumdar or by Purnima Mujumdar.
Dr Zhonghua Wu will soon return to China to accept position as Full Professor at Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin. Coincidently, it was at this institution that Prof. Mujumdar first delivered a seven-day short course on Industrial Drying in August 1984- a quarter of a century ago. This led to significant drying R&D activity in industry as well as academia in China. TPR will continue to work closely with Zhonghua. He is the third PhD graduate from our group to take up an academic position in China ( Prof. Lixin Huang in Nanjing and Dr Xu Peng in Hangzhou). Dr. Atiq Rahman is with Monash University in KL, Malaysia.
Meng Wai Woo is working closely with Prof Wan Ramli, UKM and Prof Mujumdar to produce a freely downloadable e-book on Spray Drying. It has already enlisted 15 experts to cover different aspects of spray drying. Some other e-books are planned to be produced within the next year as well.
Karthik Somasundaram will soon defend his PhD proposal.
TPR presented a record number of papers in 2009. Sachin has compiled a full list as well as a CD of the conference papers presented by members of our group. Interested parties may request copy of the CD by writing to Prof. Mujumdar at mpeasm@nus.edu.sg.
WFCFD will hold a workshop on Crystallization, Filtration & Drying (CFD)in Mumbai in February 2010. Details will be available soon
Dr Sakamon Devahastin, Professor Mujumdar’s PhD student at McGill, received a special SCOPS-Thailand Research Foundation Award from the Prime Minister of Thailand for his exceptional research contributions (which include over 100 journal papers). He received his PhD in 2001. His thesis was published as a book by a German publisher. He also received Taylor & Francis Award for his contributions to Drying Technology journal (over 20 papers and 17^th most authored publications in Drying). Hearty congratulations, Sakamon from TPR Group!

September 21, 2009

Professor Mujumdar gave Plenary lectures at conferences in Potsdam, Germany (August31-September 2, 2009) and at XII Polish Drying Symposium (PDS) held in Lodz, Poland, September 13-16, 2009.
The tenure of M3TC has been extended by EDB to March 31, 2013. We have a new member joined our team. He is Sachin Jangham from my alma mater - now called Institute of Chemical Technology. Welcome aboard Sachin.
Seven major drying conferences were held in 2009 with one more to go in Bangkok in October 2010. They were held in France, Iceland, Montreal, Lodz, China and next one in Thailand. National and local symposia are not counted in this number. This shows growing interest in DRYING around the globe. IDS2010 will be held in Magdeburg, Germany and the abstracts deadline is within next few weeks. So, please RUSH!
The Professor Arun S Mujumdar Medal was awarded to Professor W J M Douglas of McGill University, Montreal at IADC held in Montreal in August, and also to Professor S.Kowalski of Poznan Technical University in Poznan, Poland at XII Polish Drying Symposium. Aside from excellence in drying research, this medal requires exceptional mentorship which will help keep Drying R&D an active area in years to come. This award is given after a global search and is now regarded as the highest honor in the multi-disciplinary field of DRYING.
Meng Wai Woo has submitted his PhD thesis to UKM. He is now at University of Sydney for a few months.
Woo has initiated on a major e-book initiative devoted to Spray Drying. Eight chapters are already confirmed, but it may have upto 12 chapters eventually. It is a professional service with a view to making modern R&D results available around the world regardless of affordability of the users.
Additional e-book titles are planned dealing with Food Dehydration, Food Preservation, Postharvest Technology, Low Temperature Drying etc.,Potential editors and authors may contact Prof.Mujumdar. These are intended for free downloads. No loss in quality from books by major publishers! These chapters will be peer-reviewed.
Dr. Xu Peng has moved to Hangzou and joined his acdemic position. He will continue his collaborative work on pulsed impinging jets and possible hydrocyclones too. Best wishes to Xu Peng!
All of our group members have numerous conference presentations committed over next three months. The number of journal papers is also on the rise.
Karthik Somasundaram will defend his PhD proposal next week.
Several of our recent PhD thests may be published as books/monographs by a German publisher. This reflects on the quality as well as potential interest in and hence impact on the work. As you may recall Sakamon's 2001 PhD thesis from McGill was selected for such publication early this year.

August 23, 2009

Congratulations to Poh Hee Joo who passed his final oral defense for PhD on August 19th, 2009. Particular credit is due to him since he did his thesis while working full time .
Dr Xu Peng will leave us to join his academic position in Hangzhou in early September. TPR Group will continue to collaborate with him in the area of modeling hydrocyclones and pulsed impinging jet heat transfer .
Prof. Mujumdar will present keynote lectures at international conferences in Potsdam , Germany and Lodz , Poland . He will also visit NTNU in Trondheim , Norway in September. TPR plans cooperation with NTNU researchers.
A new e-book on Spray Drying is being edited by Meng Wai Woo, Prof. Daud Ramli (UKM) and Prof. Mujumdar for release in about six months. It will be freely downloadable to help improve access to latest knowledge to the developing world in particular. Additional titles are being considered by several other members of TPR group. The goal is to make recent R&D results available to readership around the world which has very limited or no access to such work. We trust this will have a global impact particularly in the developing world in view of serious energy and environmental issues.
Meng Wai Woo is visiting Prof. T. Langrish's laboratory at University of Sydney for several months. Sachin Jangam of the Institute of Chemical Technology will be joining M3TC to initiate experimental work on coal drying.
Recent analysis of our publications done by Dr Xu Peng shows our TPR group members have been extra-ordinarily productive in 2008-2009. We published over 30 journal papers, presented 20+ conference papers and two books.
A Professor Mujumdar Visiting Professorship in chemical engineering has been established at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India. This follows the Platinum Award presented by the same institute on May 21, 2009.
2009 has produced a virtual tsunami of drying conferences in France, Iceland, Montreal, Poland, China and Bangkok. Professor Mujumdar Medal for outstanding research and mentorship in drying is or will be presented at four of these conferences in 2009. This follows one each presented in 2007 and 2008. Most interestingly, the Medal winner at IADC, Montreal, August 2009, is his thesis supervisor from McGill University.

July 1, 2009

An e-book which compiles recent work of TPR Group members on Mathematical Modeling of Industrial Transport Processes edited by Xu Peng, Wu Zhonghua and A S Mujumdar is now available for free download from http://serve.me.nus.edu.sg/arun/TPR_Ebook.htm
Drying Technology Journal has again raised its impact factor for 2007 to 1.393. Stricter peer reviews and reduced acceptance rate will probably see it rise significantly in the coming years. Its 5-year impact factor stands at 1.545.
We are pleased to note that M3TC has its mandate extended to March 2013. M3TC carries out multi-disciplinary R&D projects within Faculty of Engineering that are of particular interest to the resources industries with focus on minerals, metals and materials processing. Industrial collaboration is strongly encouraged.
ADC09, Bangkok has attracted 151 abstracts. TPR will present papers at the Polish Drying Conference in Lodz as well as ADC09. A paper will be presented at IADC in Montreal, August 2008, as well by our collaborator, Prof. M. B. Ray of the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Arun S Mujumdar Medal for Excellence in Drying R&D and Outstanding Mentorship was presented to Prof.Trygve Eikvik of NTNU at the Nordic Drying Conference in June 2009. Congratulations Trygve! This medal will also be presented at IADC in Montreal and ADC09 in Bangkok. Winners will be announced at the respective conferences.

June 12, 2009

TPR is pleased to note that the PhD thesis( McGill University, 2001) of Dr Sakamon Devahastin at McGill University (2001) is now published as a softcover book by a German publisher. Dr Wang Shijun did his PhD work in this area of confined opposing jet flows. Dr Mostafa Hosseinalipour preceded Dr.Sakamon at McGill. All three PhD theses were directed by Prof. Mujumdar. Further work in this area is ongoing at KMUTT, Bangkok, Thailand under Dr. Sakamon's direction. Hearty congrats, Sakamon!
Visit here for detail.
After successful organization of the Workshop on Mathematical Modeling in Minerals, Metals & Materials Processing (WM5P) in Marcch 2009, it was decide that a book containing overviews of recent modeling work conducted by TPR members be compiled as an e-book for wide global distribution. The coverage of this book of 10 chapters is much wider and hence is entitled " Mathematical Modeling of Transport Processes in Industrial Systems". Free downloads will be possible shortly.
Contact mpeasm@nus.edu.sg for more information .
TPR is pleased to announce that Dr. Hiro Ogura, who has been collaborating with Prof. Mujumdar for over 15 years in the area of chemical heat pump applications in drying, has been promoted to Full Professor at Chiba University, Japan. Congratulations, Hiro!
Prof. Mujumdar is appointed senior Advisor of the Jiangnan-Pepsico Institute in Food science Department of Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Japan.
Some interesting statistics: Web of Science reports a total of 2535 cites and an h factor of 23 for Prof. Mujumdar's publications since 1990. These exclude books, book chapters, conference papers etc. Also, he contributed over 200 items (including editorials, book reviews etc) to Drying Technology journal since its inception in 1982. The second contributor made about one-fifth of this number but over a shorter period.

June 3, 2009

Professor Mujumdar was awarded the esteemed Platinum Award of the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai on May 31, 2009. Among the distinguished recipients of this award areinternationally recognized personalities: Mr Mukesh Ambani, Industrilist, Dr. Reddy, Industrialist, Prof. M.M. Sharma, Dr. R. A.Mashelkar et al.
ICT has instituted a Profssor Arun S Mujumdar Chair in Chemical Engineering at ICT with industry sponsorship.
Dr Zhonghua Wu has been selected for a professorship at Tianjin University of Science & Technology- formerly called Tianjin University of Tianjin Institute of Light Industry where Prof. Mujumdar gave a seven day short course in Industrial Drying in 1984 and initiated a long term ,multi-university coopertaion in China that continues even now. Seven PhDs have been completed at Jiangnan University, Wuxi, with Prof. Mujumdar as CoAdvisor.
Dr Png Xu will join China Jiliang University (CJLU, formerly the China Institute of Metrology) in Hangzhou as Assistant professor of Physics. Congratulations and best wishes, Peng! TPR will continue collaborative research with him in the coming years as well.
Prof. Mujumdar will deliver a keynote lecture in Potsdam, Germany followed by a visit to NTNU, Norway and visits to universities in Poland and presentations at the Polish Drying Symposium in Lodz in September.
Arun S Mujumdar Medals for Excellence in Drying Research and Outstanding Mnetorship will be presented at Polish Drying Symposium, Lodz,, September 2009 Inter-American Drying Conference in Montreal , August 2009 as well as at the upcoming Asian Drying Conference in Bangkok, October 2009.
Atiqu Rahman, now at Monash, has received his PhD formally. Poh Hee Joo has submitted his theis toNUS while Meng Wai Woo is in final stages of submission to UKM, Malysia and Sachin Jangam is ready to submit his PhD thesis to ICT, Mumbai.. Jundika has been formally upgraded to PhD level. Congrats to all.

May 7, 2009

Professor Mujumdar has been selected for the highest honor of the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, for their Platinum Award. The award ceremony will be held in Mumbai on May 21 st with the Honorable Governor of the industrial and financial state of Maharashtra in India. Prof. Mujumdar is an alumnus of this Institute which is now a University which will grant its own degrees. Among its countless illustrious alumni are: Mr Mukesh Ambani, Prof. M. M. Sharma and Dr. R. A. Mashelkar who are known globally for their outstanding and high impact contributions to industry and academic as well as industrial research. We believe this is an extra-ordinary honor that will raise the profile of M3TC/FoE and NUS in India.
Poh Hee Joo has submitted his PhD thesis. Atiq Rahman is ready to hand in his revised PhD thesis after successfully defending his final thesis oral in March 2009.
Jundika will defend his PhD proposal on heat and mass transfer in gels on May 18th !
Xu Peng and Wu Zhonghua will co-edit with Prof. Mujumdar an e-book devoted to TPR work on mathematical modeling of industrial transport processes. This e-book will have 10-12 chapters- all co-authored with Prof. Mujumdar by members of the TPR Group. The book will be available for free downloads for a specified period of time. It should be available for free downloads by middle of June 2009.
TPR Group has published a record number of papers and book chapters, conference presentations and edited books during 2008-2009. A complete list will be available in the near future.
Drying Technology Journal is now full until mid-2010. Only the highest quality papers will be considered for per review.
Prof.Mujumdar visited coal gasification and coal to fertilizer plant facility in Changsha,Hunan Provice and GE(R&D) Labs in Shanghai. He gave a talk overviewing recent research within the TPR Group at ME/NUS.Dr.Wang Xiangqi is employed at this R&D Centre. He also visited Food Science Department at Jiangnan University in Wuxi. He discussed research projects with his co-advised PhD students there and faculty members. He also presented a lecture on Recent Developments in Food Dehydration.

April 1, 2009

The workshop WM5P (Workshop on Mathematical Modeling of Mineral,Metal and Materials Processing) was held successfully on March 15, 2009. Over 65 partiicpants registered for it including several from industry and a number of visitors from Malaysia. The proceedings in the form of handouts of the full Power Point presentations are available at this website . An e-book ,tentatively entitled " Mathematical Modeling of Industrial Processes" will be out in May 2009. It will be available for free downloads from this site. This book is expected to cover a wider range of topics which could not be fitted in the hald day format WM5P was designed for. All chapters will be from current and past members of the TPR Group and its collaborators.
Atiq Rahman successfully defended his PhD thesis on March 27th. Congraulations Dr.Rahman,from TPR family! We expect to continue active research collaboration while he is at Monash Univerity campus in KL.
Prof.Mujumdar has a new Research Fellow under an M3TC project. Dr.Monn Monn joined the group on March 27th. Her project dealswith potential utilization of MSW incinerator bottom ash in cement in active collaboration with Holcim Singpaore ,who are funding the project. Welcome aboard, Monn Monn!
Poh Hee Joo is in final stages of writing his PhD thesis for submission in June 2009.
Prof. Mujumdar is featured in the 2009 Annual Report of Faculty of Engineering, NUS, for Global recognition of his achievements.
Prof.Mujumdar will visit Jiangnan University in Wuxi and possibly GE R&D in Shanghai in late April.

March 16, 2009

The Mathematical Modeling Group of M3TC led by Prof.Mujumdar held a highly successful Workshop on Mathematical Modeling in Mineral, Metal and Materials Processing (WM5P) on March 14, 2009. A separate report on this event will appear soon. Handouts of all eight presentations of TPR Group and M3TC project reports are availableon the WM5P webpage.
Atiq Rahman will defend his PhD thesis on March 27th. He is currently with Monash University in Malysia.
Jundika will defend his PhD proposal on May 20th, 2009.
Dr Xu Peng will take up an academic posiition with China Jiliang University ( formerly China Institute of Metrology, situated in Hangzhou of China) in mid-2009. TPR expcts to continue collaboration with him in the coming year. Congratulations! He has been working on modeling hydrocyclonees and pulsed impinging jet heat transfer at elevated temperatures.
ADC09 in Bangkok, Novmber 2009, has attracted over 130 abstracts despite current economic conditions.
TPR has contributed papers to the Nordic Drying Conference,Iceland,June 2009 and the Inter-Ameican Drying Conference in Montreal ,August 2009. These papers will be presented locally.
Dr Wu and Prof.Mujumdar are editing the third issue of Drying Technology journal devoted to Innovative Drying Technologies, which will appear as the first issue in 2010. This will be an annual feature of the journal.
Prof. Dong Chen will present a Keynote Lecture ( together with Prof Li Xin Huang and Prof.Mujumdarr) at a special conference in Australia devoted to spray drying in dairy industry. TPR currrently has an effective but informal network of researchers in the spray drying area including UKM, KL, Istanbul Technical University, Monash University and Nanjing University of Forestry, China.

February 4, 2009

Transport Processes Research (TPR) Group continued high level of research productivity in terms of journal publications (30+), conference papers (20+), book chapters (3), authored book(1), translated books in Chinese ,Korean(1), edited books (3) etc.In addition, Prof. Mujumdar presented 4 keynote/penary lectures at international meetings.
Prof. Mujumdar was conferred Doctor Honoris Causa by Lodz Technical University in June 2008. He was also selected in the list of Top 100 Engineers of 2007 by ABI, Cambridge, UK.
Prof. Mujumdar received Taylor & Francis Award at IDS2008 held in Hyderabad, India in November 2008, for outstanding sustained contributions to Drying Technology Journal (Editor-in-Chief since 1988 and author of 100+ papers published in the journal since 1982).
One PhD thesis was completed during 2007 at NUS and 3 at collaborating institutions elsewhere.
TPR Group members reviewed over 150 papers for various journals in 2007.

Highlights of TPR Group in 2008!

January 10, 2009

TPR Group along with our international network associates was very productive in 2008 in terms of journal papers published, conference papers presented, PhD theses completed, book chapters published, edited works published , keynote/plenary lectures presented, seminars presented etc. Congratulations, everyone! We can look forward to another productive year in 2009!
One of our proactive collaborators, Prof. Dipak Mazumdar, is appointed Chairman of Metallurgy and Material Science at IIT, Kanpur, India. Zhonghua and I work closely with him in modeling of steel flows. His book on steelmaking processes will come out shortly.
Prof. Narain Narendra of Brazil and Prof. Mita Ray of University of Western Ontario, Canada are new collaborators of our TPR network. We will be part of a large network dealing with tropical fruits processing led by Prof. Narendra.
The second volume of the 5-volume Modern Drying Technology, VCH-Wiley, has just come off the press. The second edition of Kudra/Mujumdar book: Advanced Drying Technologies (CRC Press) has just gone to the printers. The first edition of this book appeared in Korean translation a few months ago.
Guide to Industrial Drying (3 rd ed. 2008) is now being translated into Persian. We expect it to come out in Persian by end of 2009. This book has already appeared in several languages.
Dr Wu Zhonghua and I are now working on third theme issue of Drying Technology devoted to innovative Drying Techniques. Deadline for submissions is approaching fast.
TPR has chapters in the new Albright's Chemical Engineering Handbook (CRC, 2008) and Wiley Encyclopedia of Biotechnology (2009).
TPR will organize a Workshop for M3TC on March 14 th 2009. It will focus on mathematical modeling of industrial processes. Details will be out soon. A preliminary flyer is posted on our website.
Prof. Mujumdar was recipient of the first Taylor & Francis Award at IDS2008 for contributions to Drying Technology Journal and various Drying events which promoted Drying R&D worldwide. This award will be given annually at IDS (even years) and ADC or other major drying conference (odd years). Arun S. Mujumdar Medal was presented to Prof. Michel Roques of France .

December 6, 2008

Prof. Mujumdar and Dr. Birgersson participated in the Regional Chemical Engineering Conference in KL, Malysia, December 2-3, 2009. Dr Birgersson gave a keynote lecture on PEMFC transport phenomena. Prof. Mujumdar presented a joint paper with Xu Peng. They also visited the impressive Fuel Cell Research Centre of UKM, directed by Prof. Wan Ramli.
Dr. Chung Lim Law presented two keynotes -one in Indonesia and one in Taiwan, last month, jointly with Prof. Mujumdar. His poster has won an award at the RSChE/SOMChE conference held Dec. 2-3, 2009. Congrats ,Chung Lim!
Prof. Mujumdar will participate in a major multi-year research program just approved by the Brazilian Ministry of Science & Technology. Also, two additional PhD students have joined the research team of Prof. Min Zhang of Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China.
Atiq Rahman will join Monash University, KL campus, in Januray 2009.
Congratulations are due to Dr. Bhesh Bhandari of Queensland University and Dr. Shusheng Pang of the University of Canterbury for their promotion to full professorship at their respective esteemed universities. They are close research associates of Prof. Mujumdar.
A one day event devoted to CFD-based Mathematical Modeling of Industrial Processes is planned to be held in March 2009. Details will be available next month.

November 17, 2008

Xu Peng passed his final PhD defense at HUST, Wuhan, last week. Hearty congratulations from all members of TPR!
IDS2008 held last week in India was a major success. This 16th conference in the IDS series was attended by 325 participants from 50 countries. About 90 industry participants -mainly from India- gave this IDS a unique flavor. TPR presented five papers including the Plenary lecture. IDS2008 banquest/awards ceremony, industry exhibits were highlights of IDS2008. Also, for the first time we had a second Plenary lecture that did not directly address drying. Vice Chancellor Jadav of Pune University gave a lucid and impressive economic analysis of the current financial meltdown around the world. Pune University is the largest university in the world with 650,000 registered students!
Prof. Mujumdar was the first recipient of the newly constituted Taylor & Francis award for excellence in drying research and contributions to Drying Technology literature through the journal and conferences. He has contributed over 100 research papers to Drying Technology journal since its founding in 1982. The journal has published over 2300 refereed papers- about 90% of them under Prof. Mujumdar as the Editor-in-Chief since 1987. The IDS series has led to over 4000 papers since its founding in 1978.
The third edition off Guide to Industrial drying by A.S. Mujumdar was unvieled at IDS2008. The Proceedings of IDS2008 were published in 3 hard cover volumes. This 6-kg set has 310 peeer-reviewd/revised papers- a record for IDS series. Contact Dr. B. N. Thorat at bnt@udct.org for ordering copies of the Proceedings and the Guide.
IDS2010 will take place in Magdeburg in October 2010.
2009 will be the Year of Drying. 4th NDC will be hld in April in Iceland. Polish Drying Conference is slated for Lodz,Poland in September 2009. IADC will be part of World Chemical engineering Congress in August 209 in Montreal and ADC 09 in Bangkok in November 2009. CDC in China is also planned for 2009. Prof. Mujumdar remarked in his closing lecture at IDS2008 that he hopes there will not be a draught in the world with so much intense "drying activity "all over the globe! Links to various conference sites are given elsewhere on this website.

October 29, 2008

Xu Peng has submitted his PhD thesis to Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan. The abstract of his thesis can be viewed by clicking here. He will have the final oral defense of his thesis a HUST in November. Best wishes to Xu Peng!
IDS2008 will be held in Hyderabad, India, November 9-13 th . TPR group has a number of technical presentations (click here to view the titles/authorship of papers contributed by TPR). This 16 th conference in the biennial series founded and chaired by Professor Mujumdar since 1978 while at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, will break a number of records for the series. A full report will appear in this column in late November.
Visit for list of TPR papers at IDS2008
Atiq Rahman is now ready to submit his PhD thesis. He will join Monash University, Malaysia campus in January 2009 as a faculty member. Congratulations, Atiq.
Dr Wu Zhonghua presented a paper based on his recent work on tundish modeling (M3TC) at Baosteel Conference in Shanghai in September. There was considerable interest in this work which we expect to continue to bring forth some new innovative designs for the future .
The new Guide to Industrial Drying is now ready in time for IDS2008. It is third enhanced version of the original one published in 2000 and the second edition published in 2004. Translations of the earlier versions in several languages have already appeared. The second edition of Advanced Drying Technologies (Kudra and Mujumdar) is currently in press, while Korean translation of the first edition has just been released. The second volume in the 5-volume VCH-Wiley series entitled Modern Drying Technologies is also in press and is due to be published within a month. TPR has had a record crop of journal papers, conference papers, keynote lectures and books which appeared during 2008. Congratulations to all members of the TPR family, including those at institutions around the globe.
The second theme issue of Drying Technology journal devoted to Non-conventional Drying techniques will appear in February 2009 as No. 2 issue of volume 27. Our Dr. Wu Zhonghua is the main Guest Editor for this issue. He also is formally named Assistant Editor of the journal- a rare recognition and responsibility for someone at the stage of his professional career. The journal aims to raise its impact (and impact factor!) to raise it above its current ranking of 14/105 ME journals in ISI database.
A new version of the Drying software Simprosys developed by Dr Zhenxiang Gong (my PhD student at McGill in early 90's) has now been released. Details can be found at www.simprotek.com . It can be tried out free of cost.
For TPR members and visitors to the following site would be of interest. The newly released scholarly report and survey on journal publications, role of peer reviews etc are worth reading.
This research was conducted on behalf of the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) ;the results are made freely available via PRC's website www.publishingresearch.net . The PRC is a group which supports global research into scholarly communication

October 11, 2008

Professor Mujumdar visited Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin to participate in their 50th anniversary celebrations. He presented a lecture to an audience of over 400 faculty members, students and alumni on Role of Globalization and Innovation on Academic Research. He has been an Honorary Professor there since 1984 when he was first invited there to give a 7-day lecture series on Industrial Drying-Principles & Practice. He was impressed to see the new large campus, a large student body and a large number of faculty members. He was unable to visit a second new campus of TUST has. He also gave a seminar on Recent Developments in Drying Technologies to members of the mechanical engineering faculty. (click for more)
Prof. Mujumdar visited Tianjin University's Thermal Engineering Department and gave a talk on TPR research activities. Although this visit had to be on a Sunday, he was happy to see a good level of attendance and at meetings with the Dean, Vice Dean, and faculty members as well as gradaute students. Three members of TU TE department will participate in IDS2008 in Hyderabad. TU campus is next to Nankai University and indeed they even share one new large common building. He also visited the impressive Baocheng Museum of Stone and Wood Sculptures in Tianjin and met with Mr C. Baocheng- the owner and Chairman of the large Biocheng Group Pvt. Ltd. This company has the largest share of the industrial boiler market in China.
In Beijing Prof. Mujumdar met with Prof. Liu of China Agriculture University and his graduate students. This university has an impresive campus and faculty quarters. Their sports facility was used for some of the Olympic events in August. Wu Zhonghua,incidently, obtained his Master's degree from CAU.
Prof. Mujumdar visited Danish Technological Institute in Aarhus, Denmark - about 300 km from Copenhagen. He was the Keynote speaker at a workshop focusing on steam drying technologies attended by over 60 industry personnel. He also visited the well equipped and staffed laboratories of the Intitute in Aarhus, particularly in Refrigeration Engineering. Their development of CO2 as refrigerent is particularly interesting as this technology has already been used in large refrigeration units for supermarkets in Denmark.He visited three major companies in Denmark viz. Siemens windmill facilties, a large modern soyabean processing plant and also a company that is the largest in the world which manufactures indirect rotary disc dryers (Atlas-Stord). Overall, this was a fruitful visit that will lead to future collaboration in drying area.
Dr. Wu presented a paper at the Baosteel International Conference on Steelmaking in Shanghai. TPR will present several papers at IDS2008 in November. Prof. Mujumdar will deliver keynote lectures at IDS and also at confereces in Taiwan and KL, Malaysia in November/December.
The ME/ESP engineering students' group guided by Prof. Mujumdar, which won the prestigeous mondialogo award last year, was again recipient of an NUS award this year. Congrats to all. Atiq was very helpful to the group in their project work. Two of the group members were selected for NUS College in Silicon Valley, California .
Atiquere will submit his PhD thesis in two weeks. Xu Peng has submitted his thesis to Huazhong University of Science &Ttechnology, Wuhan. Indeed, Prof. Mujumdar visited HUST during his recent trip to China, and presented a seminar and visited a number of their very impressive Key Laboratories devoted to Coal Technology and Fuel Cell Technologies.
The third ediiton of Prof, Mujumdar's Guide to Industrial drying is in press and will be available for distribution at IDS2008. Dr Law Chung Lim has made a major contribution to this edition. There are 6 new chapters in this new edition. Also, a Korean version of Advanced Drying Technologies has just appeared just as second edition of this book is going to press.

September 27, 2008

Congratulations are due to Atiqure for being selecetd as Senior Lecturer in Mechanical engineering at Monsh University in KL, Malaysia starting in early January. We expect his thesis will be submitted in about 3 weeks from now. As you know he has already published about 80% of his work in journals. This is admirable. We wish him well and offer our full upport and cooperation in his new location.
Dr Wu Zhonghua has completed guest Editing of a second issue on Innovative Drying Techniques which will appaer as Vol 27, no 2 issue in 2009. Based on his editorial processing experience as well as extensive journal review accomplishments, he is named honorary Assistant Editor of Drying Technology which now enjoys an impact factor of 1.14 and is ranked 14th among 110 ME journals by ISI. Welcome aboard Zhonghua. Prof. Mujumdar and TPR group members from NUS and elsewhere will present 6 papers, including a keynote and a Plenary address at IDS2008 in Hyderabad, India, November 2008. This 16 th conference in the IDS series initiated by Prof. Mujumdar at McGill University in 1978 has broken records for number of papers and number of total as well as industrial participants.
TPR group continues to excel in journal and conference publications. Please visit our website for full information. Dr Wu presented a paper this week in Shanghai at Baosteel International Steelmaking Conference. At IDS2008 in Hyderabad, India , our group will present a Plenary lecture, a keynote lecture plus 6 research papers. IDS2008 will set many records for number of papers, no of participants, number from industry, exhibitors etc. IDS2010 will be held in Magdeberg and 2012 likely in Australia. ADC09 will be held in Bangkok and IADC2009 will be part of World Chemical engineering Congres in Montreal in August 2009. Overall there is much interest in drying globally sought.
Prof. Mujumdar will lecture in a drying workshop in Copenhagen in early October. He wil also meet with industry participants and visit some industrial installations.
Prof. Mujumdar had a successful visit to China which included visits/seminars/lectures/meetings etc at Tianjin University of science and Technology, Tianjin University, China Agriculture University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Prof. Mujumdar is most impressed with the state of development and spirit at all these universities. Selected photos have been posted on this site. His invited talk on Role of Globalization and Innovation in Tianjin (TUST) was attended by over 500 staff and garaduate students as well as senior industry alumni of TUST-some from overseas and even CEOs of large companies of China. Prof. Mujumdar gave 4 seminars in all. Thanks to Dr Wu Zhonghua ad Xu Peng for their help. This trip was fully supported by hosts in China. Main occasion was participation in 50th Anniversary celebrations of Tianjin University of Science and Technology.The hospitality during the visit was exceptional and Prof. Mujumdar is grateful to all his hosts for their warm reception. It was nice to do the Beijing-Tianjin journey in 30 minutes at 350km/h in bullet train compared with the limousine ride of some 4 hours in 1984! Remarkable achievements indeed!
A new version of Prof Mujumdar's guide to Industrial Drying was completed in July and is already in press. This 400-page book extends the earlier version and it is expectd to be mde available at IDS2008. It has some 8 new chapters.
Modern Drying Technology Vol. 2 (VCH-Wiley, Germany) and second edition of Advanced drying Technologies (Kudra and Mujumdar, CRC Press) are at page proof stages and should be out in next 3-4 months. Chen/Mujumdar book on Food drying (Blackwell) appeared a few months ago.
A chapter on Electro-osmosis and one on Drying of iotech Products will also appear this year in a book edited in France and in Wiley encyclopedia of Biotechnology, respectively.
TPR group with our global network will present keynote lectures at international events in Denmark, Indonesia, India, Taiwan, and Kuala Lumpur before end of the year.
A new relatively complete list of our publicatins was compiled by Xu Peng.

September 5, 2008

Associate Professor Chung Lim Law of University of Nottingham, Kuala Lumpur, visited TPR Group recently. Discussions were held on ongoing projects and some collaborative projects. Four book chapters for the new Guide to Industrial Drying, and the forthcoming Wiley Encyclopedia of Biotechnology were completed during his visit. A new version of the guide is being prepared for IDS2008 distribution, if possible.
Professor Mujumdar and TPR group members from NUS and elsewhere will present 6 papers, including a keynote and a Plenary address at IDS2008 in Hyderabad, India, November 2008. This 16 th conference in the IDS series initiated by Prof. Mujumdar at McGill University in 1978 has broken records for number of papers and number of total as well as industrial participants.
Dr Zhonghua and Xu Peng have prepared a number of journal and conference papers for their M3TC project on math modeling of processes in metal and mineral processing. Collaboration with IIT Kanpur provides them with experimental data for model validation. Their focus is on model-based intensification of innovation. Industry co-funding is being sought.
Xu Peng has submitted his PhD thesis to Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. Best wishes to him.

August 11, 2008
Milford, CT, USA

IDS2008 has broken records for IDS's so far. Over 420 abstracts submitted and over 280 full manuscripts submitted. We expect it to break record in terms of the number of participants as well as the number of exhibiters and industry participants. For a conference series completing three full decides in 2008- that too in what most think as mature area of R&D- to have such a surge in interest is truly remarkable and demonstrates the vision leading to the initiation and management of the series. Congratulations are due to Prof. Thorat of MUICT,Mumbai, his team, international panel members of IDS, authors ,referees and sponsors of IDS.
Vol. 2 of Modern Drying Technology is in press on schedule. We expect to have the books to be available at IDS2008 for a special discounted price for the conference registrants. TPR members- from NUS and collaboating groups internationally- has a significant number of papers to be presented at IDS2008 along with a plenary speech by Prof. Mujumdar.
The second issue on Innovative Drying Techniques, Guest-edited by Dr Zhonghua Wu and Prof. Mujumdar, is now complete and will appear as No 1, Vol 27 issue of Drying Technology. This journal has impct factor of 1.17 for 2007. It is expected to rise further in 2008.
A new enhanced and revised version of Guide to Industrial Drying will appear at IDS2008 and possibly as e-book after that.
Professor Mujumdar is invited to present keynote lectures at conferences in Denmark, India, Taiwan and Malaysia during October-December 2008. He will also present a keynote at a Dairy conference in Melbourne in April 2009. He is scheduled to visit three universities in China during September.

July 5, 2008

Ravi has joined Vestas company in Singapore. Dr Wang Xiangqi has joined GE R&D in Shanghai. TPR group wishes them success in their new industrial positions. Ravi plans to join TPR group as a part time PhD candidate in early 2009.
Agus Susmito is now PhD candidate after passing the qualifying examination last month. Welcome aboard. Agus.
Salem Banooni has passed his PhD final defense in Tehran with flying coloursobtaing 99/100 for his final defense. Hearty congratulations. Inccidently two of his papers have just apppeared in Drying Technology.
Prof. Mujumdar presented seminars at Warsaw Technical University and Lodz Technical University. Deatils on the award ceremony where he was conferred the Doctor Honoris Causa by Lodz Technical University are available elsewhere on this site.
A new book on food drying co-edited by Prof Dong Chen and Prof Mujumdar (Blackwell, UK) has just appeared. Final work on vol 2 of Modern Drying Technology (VCH-Wiley, Germany) has just been completed.Plans are underway to produce third edition of the Guide to Industrial Drying with 5 new chapters.

June 16, 2008

Congratulations to Dr. Guohua Chen for being promoted to Full Professor at HKUST- following a highly demanding selection process. We wish him well in his future research and academic endeavors. All the best from TPR Group, Guohua!
Prof. Mujumdar received Doctor Honoris Causa from Lodz Technical University at a grand function held in Lodz on June 11, 2008. Details will be posted on this site in due course. He gave research seminars at Warsaw Technical University and Lodz technical University during his visit to Poland to receive the honorray doctorate.
TPR group can be rightfully proud of its productivity record. 2007-2008 saw a large number of refereed joirnal publications as well as a number of keynotes, conference and seminar presentations, book chapters as well as a number of books -edited/authored. Congratulations are due to all members of our research family! List of publications only covering June 2007 through July 2008 can be accessed at here.
Prof. Mujumdar will be visiting USA and Canada during July and early August.

June 4, 2008

Congrats to Agus for passing his PhD Proposal defense on June 3rd. Also, congrats to Jundika for passing the written Qualifying Exam for entry into PhD program. Their theses will deal with theral management of PEMFC stacks and drying of gels, respectively.
Prof. Mujumdar will present seminars at Warsaw Technical University and Lodz Technical University in Poland next week. The conferment of Doctor Honoris Causa function will be held on June 11th at Lodz.
Prof. Mujumdar with Dr. Birgersson will present a Keynote lecture at SOMCHEM2008 in KL December 2-3, 2008.
Prof. Mujudar will attend 50th Anniversary function at Tianjin University of Light Industry September 20th. He will also present two lectures in Tianjin during this visit. Another keynote will be given in Denmark in October.
IDS2008 attracted 380+ abstracts. Over 200 full papers have arrived by first deadline. We expect this number to reach 300 and possibly 500 attendees- a large number from industry. All these are records for IDS.
IADC2009 will be held in Montreal during August 23-28, 2009 as part of the 8th World Congress of Chemical Engineering. Also, ADC09 is planned for Bangkok in October 2009.
Once again, our TPR Group has a very large number of journal papers and conference papers accepted in 2009. Congrats to all members!

May 24 , 2008

Professor Mujumdar presented a series of seminars at UKM, Bangi , Malaysia on June 20, 2008 . About 80 participants from UKM as well as other universities and laboratories in Kuala Lumpur area attended the seminar series. He also visited a major Fuel Cell R&D Centre at UKM headed by Prof. Wan Ramli Wan Daud. We expect to have some collaborative research in drying with the UKM Industrial Drying Research Group. We also have strong interest in the fuel cell area as well.
Prof. Mujumdar also visited University of Nottingham (KL campus) and met with A/Prof. Law Chung Lim and his four PhD students working on different aspects of drying exotic fruits. TPR has a number of collaborative projects with Dr Law. Additional multi-nation collaboration will be initiated soon with groups in Turkey and Brazil as well as Malaysia .
IDS2008 arrangements including equipment exhibition are in full swing. Papers deadline is approaching and a high turnout is expected from initial indications. There is strong industry response. Nominations are being received for several Major Awards to be presented at IDS2008. TPR members and collaborators will present six papers at IDS2008.
The 3 rd Inter-American Drying Conference ( 3 rd in series started in 1997 with first conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil and second one in Montreal) will be held in Montreal again in August 2009 as part of the World Chemical Engineering Congress. Announcement and the Call for Papers will be available on this site and in DRT soon. ADC09 is also planned to be held in Bangkok in October 2009.
TPR member news: Agus Susmito will defend his PhD proposal on June 4 th and Jundika will give is QE on May 27 th . Agus also has two papers to present in Pretoria , S. Africa in June. Among TPR recent graduates: Ravi Kandasamy will join Vestas in Singapore as Principal Engineer and Dr Wang Xiangqi will join GE R&D in Shanghai next month. Best wishes and congratulations to Ravi and Xiangqi.
Prof. Mujumdar will travel to Warsaw and Lodz in Poland in June. He will present seminars at Warsaw technical University as well as Lodz Technical University , where he will also receive Doctor Honoris Causa.

May 6 , 2008

Professor Mujumdar will be conferred the prestigeous title of Doctor Honoris Causa by Technical University of Lodz, Lod, Poland on June 11, 2008. He will also present seminars at Warsaw Technical University and Lodz Technical University during his visit to Poland in June.
Prof. Mujumdar visited Jiangnan University at its brand new campus on the outskirts of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, China. He presented a seminar there and visited the food engineering/science laboratories. Some 15 postgraduate students of Prof. Min Zhang presented their work in a series of seminars. Prof. Mujumdar has co-advised 3 PhD s at JU and is currently advising three more in the area of drying and vacuum frying. He is very impressed with the quality of the facilities, student calibre and productivity at JU. He also visited Wuxi Spray Drying Co. and two other industrial R&D labs near Qin Tao and Shanghai. He met with Dr LiXin Huang and his colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Agriculture in Nanjing.
IDS2008 preparations are on in full swing. Over 500 participants from 50 countries are expected to participate- a record for IDS series. Manuscripts are due within next 4 weeks. They will be peer reviewed.
Dr Wu guest-edited an excellent theme issue of Drying Technology which is just out. A sequel is under way and it is already half full.
Albright's Chemical engineering Handbook (CRC Press) will be out next month. Prof Mujumdar has a chapter in it. Dr. Dong Chen & Mujumdar's edited book on Food Dehydration Technolgies will come out in 4 months. Also, a book on Electrotechnologies in Biotechnology will be out later this year. Prof Mujumdar and Dr Yoshida (Japan) have a chapter on Electro-osmosis in that book. Two more book chapters have been written for two other books to appear in 2009.
We have a record number of journal and conference papers as well as books and book chapters( by TPR students and assciates) published during the past 12 months. Congratulations to all conerned.
Prof Mujumdar will present a 4-hr seminar series at UKM in Kuala Lumpur, May 20th. He will visit UKM and University of Nottingham, KL campus during his short visit to KL.
Salem Banoon of Iran will be defending his PhD thesis later next month. Best wishes to him. He is co-advised by Prof. Mujumdar

April 14, 2008

Prof. Mujumdar visited six top universities in Instanbul and Ankara, Turkey in March. He was impressed with the high quality of students and rseearch being done at the state and Foundation universities there.
TPR group had four journal papers accepted lst month and an additional six conference papers (including invited/keynote lectures to be presented in Pretoria, South Africa, Moscow, Russia, Hyderabd, India, Taiwan etc. accepted for presentation.
Modern Drying Technology, vol 2 ( VCH-Wiley, Germany) and Drying Technology for Foods ( Wiley,UK) are in final stages of printing. They are expected to be off the press by July 2008. Prof Mujumdar is co-editor for both books.
Taylor & Francis (USA) have announced sponsorship on a major Award to recognize an internationally recognized leader for contributions to Drying Technology Journal, IDS and other conference series as well as books on drying which have made major and lasting impact on global R&D activity in drying and dewatering. It will be an annual award (like Aun Mujumdar Medal) and presented at IDS (in even years) and at AsiaPacific Conference (ADC) in odd years. The first award will be presented at IDS2008 in India in November 2008.
Dr Xiangqi Wang has took on an industrial R&D position in Singapore. M3TC will miss him but as he is in Singapore TPR is pleased to have continuous interactions with him.
Prof. Mujumdar will visit Jinagnan University in Wuxi , China this month. He is an honorary Professor at this university noted for excellence in food science, formerly known as Southern Yangtze University.

March 1 , 2008

Professor Mujumdar has been named Platinum Jubilee Distinguished Professor by Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology(MUICT), Mumbai. He is an alumnus of MUICT.
3rd WFCFD was held successfully at MUICT ,February 19-21, 2008 to a capacity audience. The strong growth in food, chemical and pahramaceutical industries in India has propelled industry interest in crystallization, filtration and drying in India to unparalled levels.
IDS2008 will be held in the historic city of Hyderabad, India, in November 2008. Over 300 abstracts have arrived from over 50 countries with India, Brazil, China, Japan, Poland, France etc as leading contributing countries. Nominations are being invited for the IDS Major Awards. Visit www.ids2008.com for details. It is the 16th event in the IDs series founded at McGill University in 1978 by Prof. Mujumdar. Over 4000 papers have been presented at the IDS series. IDS also spawned several continental and regional Drying conferences around the world e.g. ADC, IADC, NDC, IWSID, WFCFD etc.
Prof. Mujumdar visited mechanical ,metallurgical and chemical engineering departments at IIT Kanpur and Banaras Hindu University ( BHU IT) Institute of Technology. Banaras ,India ; presented three seminars and met with several faculty members. He also gave a keynote lecture at a major Dairy Technology Conference in Banaras attended by over 1000 delegates. India is now world's number 1 producer of milk, overtaking USA some years ago.He was the Principal Lecturer at 3rd WFCFD as well.

January 17, 2008

Dr Wu Zhonghua, Dr. Lou Zhengquan and Dr Wang Xiangqi formally have received their PhD degrees from NUS. Congratulations to all!
Dr. Chung Lim Law, a former visiting PhD student and a regular collaborator/visitor to TRP Group, has just been promoted to Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering by University of Nottingham in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia . Hearty congratulations, Chung Lim!
On a similar happy note, Associate Professor Rami Jumah, one of Prof. Mujumdar's PhD students at McGill University , has been promoted to Full Professorship at Jordan University of Science & Technology, Amman . He is also the Head of Chem. Eng. Department. Congratulations, Rami ! Incidently, in the latest London Times ranking of top universities of the world, McGill University , Montreal , Canada is ranked the best public university in North America and 12 th overall. NUS is ranked 33 in the same ranking.
Prof. Mujumdar will give a keynote lecture at an international Dairy conference at Banares Hindu University (BHU) in February 2008. This meeting will have over 1000 international delegates. He will also lecture in Mumbai at MUCIT at the 3rd WFCFD after visiting IIT Kanpur in connection with joint research projects under M3TC sponsorship.
Prof. Mujumdar has accepted to deliver a plenary lecture at the ASME Summer Conference in Jacksonville, FL , USA in August 2008 and also at the 16 th Int. Drying Symposium (IDS2008) in Hyderabad , India in November 2008. IDS2008 has attracted over 250 abstracts from 50+ countries prior to the abstracts deadline.
Dr Wu Zhonghua is Guest Editor of a theme issue of Drying Technology Journal on Non-conventional Drying Techniques ( DRT vol. 26, No 4, 2008, May 2008). Zhonghua started on this project about a year ago and has processed numerous manuscripts in a professional manner, gaining valuable experience in professional editing of an archival per-reviewed journal now in 26 th year of publication and still growing! Congrats Zhonghua! This is a unique and unusual experience for a fresh PhD. Earlier, Dr Li Xin Huang accomplished a similar task very successfully. He is now formally appointed Assistant Editor of Drying Technology (DRT).
Prof. Mujumdar visited KMUTT, MTEC, and Asian Institute of Technology etc in Bangkok this week. ADC09 will be held in Bangkok in August 2009 with Dr Sakamon Devahastin as Program Chairman.

Happy New Year to all visitors to this website!

December 27, 2007

Dr. Wu Zhonghua 's paper at the Indian Metals Society Annual Conference held in Mumbai in November 2007 was awarded the Best Paper Prize. This work was co-authored by Prof. D. Mazumdar (IIT Kanpur) and Prof. Mujumdar. Congrats , Zhonghua!
The Mathematical Modeling group of M3TC has already presented seven research papers and 2 Keynote papers during a very short span of M3TC's existence since May 2007. Congrats to group members for their prolific productivity. We are now focusing on industry linkages.
Advance news item: Prof. Mujumdar is slated to receive an honorary doctorate from a major university in Europe..details to be unveiled in due course.
Arrangements are at advanced stage for IDS2008 to be held in Hyderabad in November 2008. Mumabi turns out to be too expensive! look for details at ids2008 website.
Work on second and third volumes of Modern Drying Technology is now in progress. This 5 volume set is published by VCH-Wiley, Germany.

BEST WISHES FOR A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO OUR VISITORS! TPR Group.

December 11 , 2007

A team of students from ME and ESP has won a prestigeous and highly competitive global scale award as described by one team member as follows. Te project deals with sustainable drying of agricultral products in India. ==============================================================================
We have won the Mondialogo Engineering Award 06/07, with a cash prize of 20,000 Euros (abt SGD$40,000). Judges comments ranged from very detailed and well-thought out proposal to a project with great potential to directly impact the lives of farmers in rural India.

The competition field was very tough and there were many excellent projects from all over the world. It was a great honour to win at this competiton that was organised by Daimler and UNESCO. We have had a marvellous time in Mumbai and will be making a trip to village where we plan to implement the project over the next 2 days. As for myself, I will be returning to Singapore on 12th Dec morning.

We have also been featured in 2 Indian newspapers, the Indian Express & Hindustan Times. We have given many more interviews to the national Indian newspapers and also to the Straits Times Correspondent in India. He said to expect our feature tomorrow or the day after on the East Asia section of the papers.

We would also take this opportunity to thank our mentors Prof Mujumdar & Mr Atiq for their invaluable support and assistance. Thank you!

Here are my team members from Singapore
1. Veerappan Swaminathan (Mechanical Engineering, Yr 2)
2. Tan Huei Ming (Engineering Science, Yr 2)
3. Tan Yi Han (Engineering Science, Yr 2)
4. Muhd Ibnur (Engineering Science, Yr 2)
5. Set Ying Ting (Engineering Science, Yr 2)

Here are our partner team members from MUICT (Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology)
1. Vaibhav Tidke (Chemical Engineering, Yr 4)
2. Darshan Metha (Chemical Engineering, Yr 4)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Professor B.N. Thorat of MUICT, who also orgaizes WFCFD meetings and will Chair IDS2008 in November 2008 in Mumbai, was the MUICT team mentor in Mumbai while I advised the ME/ESP group here. Atiq Rehman helped the group carry out some experiments and calculations.

Our hearty congratulations to all! There is press coverage in India and also there will be some here and within NUS as well in the near future.
Dr Wu Zhongua's paper won Best Paper Award at the annual conference of Indian society of Metals held last month in Mumbai. Our paper, in an area supported by M3TC, was presented by our collaborator and co-author Prof. D. Mazumdar of IIT Kanpur Dept. of Materials science. This follows similar award won by Atiq Rehman at ADC07 in Hong Kong in August this year.

November 9 , 2007

Professor Mujumdar gave a public lecture on role oof mathemeatical modeling in industrial processing on October 17, 2007. It was webcast on the internet and is available for viewing at URL posted on the homepage of this site.
Wang Xiangqi successfully defended his PhD thesis research. Congratulations, Xiangqi!
Jundika will carry out his research on heat and mass transfer in gels with Dr Erik Birgersson of ESP as co-advisor.
Wang Xiangqi and Wu Zhonghua are both Research Fellows with the newly established Centre ,M3TC, which focuses on industry-relevant applied R&D. They are already busy working on several development products based on CFD. Several papers will be presented in the next several weeks at various conferences.
Professor Mujumdar visited Asia Miner conference in Jakarta last week along with a meeting with EDB, Jakarta in connection with M3TC. He also visited ITB in Bandung.
3TC is co-organizing two conferences in Singapore (Energex 2007 in November and PFAM16 in December) along with seminars and a short course. As the Centre started just six months ago, this is quite an accomplishment.
IDS2008 preparations are going on. We were first to upload abstracts on the site. Already a proposal to host IDS 2012 is on the table.
special issue of Drying Technology devoted to Innovative Drying Technologies co-edited by me and Zhonghua is progressing well; it should come out in about six months. As you may know Dr Li Xin Huang, Nanjing ((PhD from our group, 2005) is Assistant editor of Drying Technology.
Salem Banooni of Tehran University of Science & Technology, PhD student of Dr M. Hossseinalipour (Prof. Mujumdar's PhD student at McGill) visited our group and presented a summary of his experimental and numerical work on heat and mass transfer in baking flat bread in an impingement oven. (Nov. 7). Prof. Mujumdar is his co-advisor.
TPR group has been unusually productive in 2007 as in earlier years with a large number of journal and conference papers, book chapters, reviews for various key journals etc. Congratulations! A new PhD student will join us in January 2008- most likely to work in the area of SOFC.

September 30, 2007

Mr Peng Xu of Department of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Wuhan, China, has arrived. He is a Visiting PhD student supported fully by a scholarship from Govt. of China for a period of two years. He will initially meet with all members of the TPR group and become familiar with our recent work and objectives/plans. He will then select a topic that will be part of his PhD thesis for HUST. Welcome, Xu Peng!
I would like to make a special note of the fact that Xu Peng is already the main author of a large number of high impact journal papers.
Professor Mujumdar was external examiner ( "opponent") for a PhD thesis at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway, this week. He held discussions with the Dean of Engineering, and Heads of Materials and Mineral Engineering departments at NTNU for potential cooperation in areas of interest to M3TC.
Four theme issues of Drying Technology are at advanced stages for 2008 publication. Based on some 200+ papers presented at ADC07 in Hong Kong August 13-15, 2007, four journals will publish 4 theme issues. Only about 50 out of the pool of 200+ papers will appear in the archival peer-reviewed literature.
TPR group members will present 6 technical papers at conferences co-sponsored by M3TC during November-December 2007. Two of them will be held in Singapore and one in India. Prof. Mujumdar will present a Faculty-wide seminar on October 17th ( 1-2 pm) providing an overview of the role of mathematical modeling in various industrial processes e.g. drying, fuel cells, pulsed combustion, mineral/metal and materials processing etc.
The first volume in the 5-volume series entitled Modern Drying Technology, Ed. E. Tsotsas and A.S. Mujumdar, VCH-Wiley, Germany, is off the press. A handbook of drying, with the same title, has also appeared in Chinese. It is second edition of the successful comprehensive handbook first published about 8 years ago.
IDS2008 website is ready and already accepting abstracts for the November 2008 event in Mumbai. At Prof. Thorat's special request TPR group has already uploaded two abstracts-one by Atiq and another by Zhonghua- indeed we have litareally covered A to Z with this inaugural submissions. all that remains is what we promised to accomplish before the manuscript deadline!
Our group has been highly productive in terms of papers for journals and conferences as well as books and book chapters. A theme issue on Innovative Drying Techniques is being guest-edited for Drying Technology. A reasonably up-to-date list of publications appears on our website. A new PhD student will join in Januray 2008.
Brief News: Wu Zhonghua and Lou Zhengquan have submitted their revised PhD theses. Congratulations to both! Now awaiting Wang Xiangqi's final defense hopefully within the next two months Dr Lim Chung Law, Univ. Nottingham, KL, Malaysia will visit for a few days next week.

August 30, 2007

ADC07 was held very successfully on the beatiful campus of HKUST with Prof. Guohua Chen as Program Chairman. Aome 170 persons from 33 countries presented nearly 200 papers at this 3-day event. Special issues will be published by four different journals based on selected papers from this conference. The conference proceedings are published in 2 volumes (1320 pages) by World Scientific(Singapore).
Our group presented 9 papers at ADC07(including contributions from our overseas collaborators). In addition, Prof. Mujumdar gave a 60-minute Plenary Lecture. Atiq's poster won Best Poster Award sponsored by Taylor & Francis Group, consisting of a copy of the 3rd Edition of Handbook of Industrial Drying and 2-year complimentary subscription to Drying Technology journal-a total value of over US$1500.
Prof. Mujumdar and Purnima Mujumdar were each presented with Distinguished Aaward of the conference for their sustained and uninterrupted contributions to promotion of drying R&D internationally over nearly three decades.
A new medal named after Professor Arun S. Mujumdar was established and offered for the first time at ADC07. This medal recognizes an individual for his/her research excellence, professional service to worldwide community of drying researchers and for outstanding mentorship ensuring continuing excellence in drying R&D. The first recipient of the award is Professor Czeslaw Strumillo, Lodz Technical Univesity, Lodz, Poland. Author of hundreds of papers, dozens of books etc Prof. Strumillo was President of the University during 1990's. A large number of his PhD studnets are now contributing extensively to drying R&D. Hearty congratulations ,Prof. Strumillo.
This Medal is by far the most demanding in terms of required credentials of the recipient. It will be given at each international drying conference (e.g. ADC,IDS,NDC,IADC etc).
Xu Peng, a PhD student from China will arrive in late September to do two years of his PhD rseearch here in our group. It will be followed by research at his home university. Woo Meng, a PhD student from UKM, KL, visited with us for six weeks in June/July.
So far 2007 has been extra-ordinarily productive for TPR group, with over 20 journal and over 20 conference papers already caccepted/submitted or presented. We also wrote several book chapters and completed editing of two books due out later this year. A chapter in Albright's Chemical Engineering Handbook (CRCPress) will appear later in 2007.
M3TC is operational now. Wang Xiangqi has joined as a Research Fellow. Several conference papers relevant to M3TC areas will be presented in the next six months along with a few journal papers as well. M3TC is a cosponsor of several impor ta nt conferences.

August 10, 2007

A group of ESP undergraduate students have joined hands with two senior chemical engineering students of Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai, to participate in a worldwide student competition- Mondialogo Engineering Award) in the area of sustainable development. Teams from developing and developed countries are supposed to work jointly on the long tem project. ESP/UICT team have cleared the first selection process; they are among some 30 projects selected for final round out of some 800 submissions. Congratulations! Professor Mujumdar was instrumental in bringing the teams together ( he is alma mater of UICT himself) and also guiding the teams at NUS/ESP as well as UICT through Prof. B.N. Thorat. The top Prize is worth $20K euros. Good luck Guys! Atiq Rehman of TPR group also guided the ESP group in the experimental testing here. Click here for the cover of their first report on the project. Contact Prof. Mujumdar for details.
Prof Mujumdar will deliver the Plenary Lecture at ADC07- 5th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference being held at HKUST August 13-15th 2007. He will also chair a Panel Discussion and host a Drying Technology Journal dinner for the editors and editorial board members of the journal. Additionally TPR has 4 research papers at ADC07.
A new Gold Medal is being instituted named after Professor Mujumdar. It will be given after a worldwide search to some one who has made truly global impact and has contributed at the highest level to drying R&D, teaching ,service and mentoring on a global scale. This medal is planned to be presented annually at each international drying conference ( IDS, ADC, IADC,NDC etc). Details to be publicized at ADC07.
Prof. Mujumdar visited Monash University and CSIRO, Minerals Div. in Melbourne July 26-28th. This visit was connected with M3TC effort to link with major overseas institutions who excel in M3TC areas of interest.
Prof. Mujumdar presented lectures at Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals R&D Centre in Gurgaon, India. It was attended by a large group of engineers and scientists belonging to one of the largest and fasted growing pharma companies of India.
TPR has continued its research productivity with 5 journal papers published and a similar number accepted or in press.
As noted earlier book manuscripts for Food Drying Technologies ( D. Chen and ASM, Ed.) and Modern Drying Technology, Vol 1 ( E.Totsas and ASM,Ed) are now in press. Work on vol 2 is in progress. One book chapter was delivered two months ago and two more chapter invitations have been accepted with overseas collaborators. TPR has also made contributions to the Chinese Handbook entitled Modern Drying Technology; the second edition has just come off the press.
M3TC- we expect to present 4 papers and submit 2 papers for journal publication based on recent math modleing effort related to metal processing.
Jundika Candra has joined our TPR group. He will work in the area of Lithium batteries with Dr. P. Balaya and myself. Welcome aboard.

July 14, 2007

Dr. Wang Shijun and Mr Ravi Kandasamy received their PhD and M.Eng. diplomas, respectively, at the Commencement ceremonies held last week. Once again, congratulations to them on heir success. Both have already published nearly all of their thesis research in good journals.
Mr Woo Meng Wai of UKM, KL is visiting us as a Visiting PhD student. We are working on modeling of spray dryers, in particular the wall deposits and testing of new drying kinetic models. Experiments are being done at UKM.
Lou Zhengquan successfully defended his PhD thesis work last month. He is working as Vice President of a new major manufacturing company involved in production of silica based products. (Zhejiang Zhongtion Fluoro Co. Ltd. Congratulations!
Prof. Mujumdar presented a keynote lecture in Sun City, S. Africa, July 1-4, 2007 at HEFAT2007- 5th conference in the series.
A review paper on Drying of Castable Refractoriness has been prepared jointly with Dr. Zhenxiang Gong (California, USA). This is an area of interest for M3TC. Wu Zhonghua is also working on evaluating potential of superheated steam spout/fluid bed drying of granulated wet coal.

June 14, 2007

Lou Zhengquan will defend his PhD thesis on June 25, 2007.
Wang Xiangqi has submitted his PhD thesis. He will continue as Research Fellow in the newly established Mineral, Metals and Materials Technology Centre (M3TC) in Faculty of Engineering, NUS, with support from EDB, Singapore. He will focus on mathemetical modeling of diverse process technologies of interest to the MMM sector with the aim of enhancing process performance, conceptual testing of innovative processes and optimization.Professor Mujumdar has been appointed Director, M3TC.
Wu Zhonghua has joined Engineeering Science Programme/FoE as Research Fellow. His research is initially focused on modeling of energy systems.
TPR group will welcome four bright young researchers as visiting PhD students from reputed universities in Malaysia, China and Iran( 2) over the coming year. They are registered PhD candidates in their home universities with Prof. Mujumdar as co-supervisor. Details to follow. They are funded by their host government agencies or universities.
Volume 1 of the 5-volume series entitled Modern Drying Technology (Ed. E. Tsotsas and A. S. Mujumdar) is expected off the press (Wiley/VCH) next month. Work on vol 2 has started. New book on Food Drying Technology (Blackwell) is ready to go to the publisher(Blackwell, UK). This is edited by Prof D. Chen (Monash) and me.
Prof. Mujumdar will deliver a keynote and a plenary lecture in July and August ,in Sun City, South Africa and Hong Kong, respectively. He will also give an invited lecture in New Delhi in mid-July. TPR group and our collaborators will present six technical papers at ADC07.
TPR group has submitted four journal papers in just the first half of June and also refereed over 12 papers for various journals- an outstanding performance for any group! Congrats to all concerned. This is extremely valuable as professional service in the global arena. A new book chapter has also been completed in collaboration with Prof. Yoshida of Oyama National College of Technology, Japan dealing with electro-osmotic dewatering of biomaterials. Two PhD theses- one each from IIT Chennai and AIT,Bangkok- were examined by Prof. Mujumdar during the past two months.

May 14, 2007

Professor Mujumdar visited three universities and two research centers in Taiwan during May 7-11, 2007. He visited selected laboratories in chemical and mechanical engineering departments at the National University of Taiwan, Taipei; National Cheng Kung University, Tainan;and National Chung Hsing University, Taichung. He also visited Fuel Cell Centre of Yuan Ze University and Sustainable Environmental Research Centre of National Cheng Kung University. The visit was organized by Prof.. D.J. Lee of NTU, Taipei with support from the National Science Council of Taiwan. Prof. Mujumdar presented seminars at the three universities and had fruitful interactions with many professors.
Congratulations to Zhonghua Wu on successful defense of his PhD thesis!

March 19, 2007

TPR Group is delighted to note that two papers from our group (by Wang Xiangqi et al) were among the top 25 published in International Journal of Thermal Sciences. Visit here for detailed listing. One paper deals with heat transfer to nanofluids and another is on the topic of heat transfer in tree-shaped microchannel networks.
One of our closest and most active collaborators, Prof. B.N. Thorat of UICT, University of Mumbai was recently awarded a Medal for Development of Effective Industry- Academia collaboration very successfully. This collaboration is probably the best in the world in the Drying R&D area. Congratulations, Dr. Thorat!
Readers interested in thermodynamic properties pf water/steam may visit for details. Amit Bhaduri is the originator of this software at www.steam-water-properties.com
Readers interested in software for process simulation of complex flowsheets involving evaporation and drying along with several other physical unit operations are invited to view Dr. Z-X. Gong's paper scheduled for ADC07. Click here for a short version. The software Simprosys is available on a trial basis.
TPR has submitted six full papers on time, including a keynote one, for ADC07. This conference has attracted about 230 abstracts from over 30 countries from around the world. The preprints of this conference will be published as a hardcover book by World Scientific (Singapore). Selected, refereed papers invited by a Selection Panel will appear in Drying Technology ( 1 issue) Applied Thermal Engineering ( 1 issue) and Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering (1 issue).
New Book edited by Prof. E. Totsas and Prof. A.S. Mujumdar, Modern Drying Technology ,Volume 1, Wiley-VCH, 2007. Visit http://as.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-352731556X,descCd-tableOfContents.html

February 27, 2007

Two handbooks edited/co-edited by Professor Mujumdar for CRC Press came off the press in 2007. See this site under New Books for details. Volume 1 of the 6-volume set entitled Modern drying Technology ( E. Totsas and A.S. Mujumdar, Eds. Wiley) is in press, due for release in July 2007.
World Forum in Crystallization, Filtration and Drying, founded by Prof. Mujumdar with assistance of Dr. Thorat of University of Mumbai UICT. held its seecond workshop in Mumbai February 22-24, 2007 to capacity audience, mostly from industry. The rapidly re-emerging industrial growth of India was reflcted in the enthusiasm of the attendees and the vigorous question & answer periods held daily. IDS2008 will be held in Mumbai and already promises to nearly double the usual attendenace levels of the biennial IDS series.
Wu Zhonghua will join ESP at NUS as a Research Fellow soon. His research effort will focus on energy systems.
Professor Mujumdar will present 4 keynote lectures on various topics at conferences in Hong Kong, China, South Africa and India over the next four month period.
Chemical Engineering & Processing journal has named Prof. Mujumdar to its Editorial Board.
The TPR group has had a very productive 2006- details can be found under list of publications on this site.

January 28, 2007

Wang Shijun successfully defended his PhdD thesis research in December 2006. Hearty congratulations, Shijun!
Lou Zhengquan and Wu Zhonghua submitted their PhD theses early this month. Zhengquan is now employed with a biomedical devices firm in Shanghai. Zhonghua is expected to continue at NUS as a Research Engineer.
Professor Mujumdar has been invited to present keynote lectures at the 2nd World Forum on Crystallization, Filtration and Drying in Mumbai, India in February 2007 and at the HEFAT Conference in Sun City, South Africa in July 2007.
Almost concurrently CRC Press, USA, has published two handbooks edited/co-edited by Prof. Mujumdar. The 1260-page oversize 3rd edition of Handbook of Industrial Drying edited by Prof. Mujumdar appeared a few months ahead of another one he co-edited , Handbook of Modeling Techniques in Food and Bioprocessing. The first volume of a 6-volume set co-edited by him with Prof. E. Totsas of University of Magdeburg (Germany) will appear in July 2007 (Wiley, Germany). A book on Food drying Technologies (Blackwell, UK) is scheduled for completion by April 2007- co-edited with Prof. X D Chen of Monash University. All books have substantial contributtions as authors by members of the TPR group.
ADC07 to be held on HKUST, Hong Kong campus in August 2007 has attracted over 225 abstracts from 33 countries. This reflects the strong continuing interest in drying R&D on a worldwide basis. 2006 has again been a very productive year for TPR group in terms of research papers published, conference papers, book chapters and books ,keynote presenttations, theses submitted etc. Compliments to all members of the group-both at NUS and international collaborators!
Drying Technology Journal celebrates its 25th anniversiary in 2007 with two specal issues. No. 1 (2007) issue is Guest-edited by Dr. S. Devahastin of KMUTT, Bangkok. It will be available electronically within a week or so. It is one of the few highly specialized journals to survive-indeed prosper- the test of time. The manuscript flow has been rising steeply for several years in a row. With the energy crunch likely to hit the globe hard within a decade, R&D in energy-intensive processes is expected to rise inevitably since it also have implications on emission of green house gases.

November 24, 2006

Ravi Kandasamy formally completed his M.Eng. at NUS this week. Hearty congratulations, Ravi! He completed an excellent thesis while holding a responsible full time position with Avagotech in Singapore (formaly Agilent Technologies). Up to four journal papers will published be based on his thesis and some subsequent research he carried out jointly with Wang Xiangqi.
Wang Shijun will defend his PhD thesis on December 20th. Most of his thesis research has already appeared in journals. Best wishes, Shijun. He has been employed with a consulting firm in Singapore for over six months.
The third enhanced edition of the not-so-handy 1260 oversize pages of the widely acclaimed Handbook of Industrial Drying (CRC Press, 2007) is off the press. It was already displayed at the annual AIChE onference in San Francisco last week.
The first volume in a new Wiley(Germany) series entitled Modern Drying Technology is now in press. This first volume out of a set of six hardcover books ,co-edited by E. Totsas and A S Mujumdar, deals with mathematical modeling of drying and dryers. The second volume is already past the planning stage. A similarly titled hnadbook in Chinese will appear in early 2007. Our group has made important contributions to this second ediiton of Chinese language Handbook.
A new Minerals, Metals and Materials Technology Centre (M3TC) will soon be inaugurated at NUS in the Faculty of Engineering. This will be a major resource Centre for industrial R&D related to the three major industrial sectors in Singapore and Asia. Deatils will be announced soon. A half day seminar hosted by M3TC in Singapore on October 30, 2006 at Suntec City was a success with international participation.
Drying Technology journal will launch its 25th year anniversary issue in January 2007.There has been eight-fold growth in the number of papers published in this journal. Its impact factor has been climbing steadily and now is above 1. It ranks among the top 14 mechanical engineering journals archived by ISI.
December 2006 will see launch of another hanbook co-edited by Professors Sablani, Datta, Rehman and Mujumdar that deals with various techniques for mathematical modeling in food and bioprocess engineering. It is also published by CRC Press. This book actually will be useful as a general text-cum-reference book regardless of discipline.
A monograph entiled Spray Drying and Spray Processing co-authored by Mujumdar, Passos and Huang is under way. This two year international project will focus on a significant amount of work done under Prof. Mujumdar's supervision at McGill, NUS and elsewhere. The second ediiton of Advanced drying Technologies (Kudra and Mujumdar) is scheduled for completion in June 2007.

October 10, 2006

University of Mumbai (earlier called University of Bombay) celebrated its 150th year anniversary in July 2006. The President of India presided over the function and released a Souvenir book which includes one-page write-ups on about one hundred of the University's alumni in various disciplines. Professor Mujumdar is included in this select list.

a. Cover of the 150th Anniversary Book

b. Message from the president of India

September 27, 2006

• Drying Technology Journal Associate Editors Dr. Sakamon Devahastin and Dr. Li Xin Huang are both being promoted at their respective institutions in Thailand and China , respectively. TPR group members convey their hearty congratulations to them.

• Prof. Mujumdar presented a Plenary lecture at the Joint Australian-New Zealand Chemical Engineering Conference, Chemeca2006, held in Auckland , NZ, September, 18-21, 2006. It was entitled “ Academic Research: Role of Innovation and Globalization”.

• Handbook of Industrial Drying (3 rd Edition, Ed. A. S. Mujumdar) CRC Press, USA , is now in press. It should be out in two months. Another Handbook, co-edited by Prof. Mujumdar with colleagues from Cornell and Oman , is at proof stage. This book deals with Mathematical Modeling in Food Processes. However, the topics covered are of wider engineering interest. This book should be out in 4 months from now.

• Volume 1 of Modern Drying Technology ( VCH-Wiley , Germany ) is at advanced stage of completion. Co-edited with Prof. E. Totsas of University of Magdeburg , Germany , this book focuses on mathematical modeling in drying processes.

• Call for Papers for ADC07, Hong Kong , August 2007, is now out. Abstracts are due by November 1, 2006 .

• Plans are under way to set up a new centre focusing on R&D in minerals, metals and materials area. Details should firm up in a month or so.

September 10 , 2006

Following is a list of papers presented by TPR group and our international collaborators. IDS2006 included 320 papers from 55 countries. IDS2008 is lated to be held in Mumbai in November 2008.

Innovation and globalization in drying R&D; A.S. Mujumdar; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 3-17, August 2006. Plenary Lecture, IDS2006.August 20-24,2006

Recent advances in fluid bed drying; B.N. Thorat, A.K. Patel, S.S. Waje and A.S. Mujumdar; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 54-67, August 2006. Keynote Lecture

Screw conveyor dryer: Process and equipment design; S.S. Waje, B.N. Thorat and A.S. Mujumdar; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 621-628, August 2006.

Continuous operation of a chemical heat pump; H. Ogura, S. Yasuda, Y. Otsubo and A.S. Mujumdar ; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 779-783, August 2006.

Pulse combustion impingement to enhance paper drying; Z.H. Wu, A.S. Mujumdar, X.D. Liu and L. Yang; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 971-978, August 2006.

A study of coupled heat and mass transfer through a composite food product during convective drying; S.M.A. Rahman, M.R. Islam and A.S. Mujumdar; 15th International Drying Symposium Budapest, Hungary, pp 1503-1509 August, 2006.

Additionally, Wang Xiangqi presented the following paper at the 13th International Heat Transfer Conference in Sydney in August 2006.

Free convection heat transfer in horizontal and vertical rectancular cavities filled with nanofluids, X.-Q. Wang, A.S. Mujumdar, and C. Yap, 13-IHTC, Sydney, Australia, August 13-18, 2006.

August 28 , 2006

1. Wang Xiangqi and Atiq Rahman presented papers at international conferences in Sydney and Budapest, respectively.

2. Professor Mujumdar was the Plenary speaker at the 15th International Drying Symposium (IDS2006) held in Budapest last week. The conference was attended by over 300 from 55 countries. Prof. Mujumdar was presented with a special Merit Award and a special Gold Medal recognizing his contributions to drying R&D and service to the global community of drying researchers.

3. Handbook of Industrial Drying, 3rd Edition (CRC Press) will come out by end of September 2006.

July 22 , 2006

1. The 3rd Edition of Handbook of Industrial Drying (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press) is now in press. It is scheduled for publication on Septemeber 21, 2006. Thanks to all team members who helped with the indexing etc. This 53-chapter, 1260-page oversize book will be in sngle volume like the first edition but with double the content. Over 70% of the content is new.

2. Drying Technology Journal will commemorate 25th year of its publication in 2007. Its impact factor rose for the fifth consecutive year to 1.027 for 2005.

3. I will present Plenary lectures at the 15th IDS in Budapest in August , CHEMECA2006 in Auckland in September and at Computational Mechanics Conference in Sanata Fe, Argentina in November. I have also agreed to give an invited talk at Fluent Users' Group Meeting in Singapore this week to summarize some of our groups work that will not be part of the 4 other presentations from TPR Group.

4. Six new FYP students will start this year on mostly new projects.At least one new postgraduate student will also start work in the PEMFC modleing area.

5. I am involved in editorial work on two new books which should be out in 2007. Modern Drying Technology( 1st vo. out of six, VCH/Wiley, Germany) and another one entitled Food drying Technolgy ( Blackwell,UK). First one is co-edited by Prof .E. Totsas of University o Magdburg, Gremany and the other by Prof X.D. Chen of Monash University, Clayton, Vic., Australia.

6. ESP undergraduate progam starts next month with first intake of about 50 students. Suggestions for research and lab projects in energy area for ESP program are welcome.

May 18, 2006

1. Prof. Mujumdar visited a dryer company in Melbourne and the Chemical Engineering Department at Monash University in Clayton , Victoria . He has a new book project with Professor X D Chen who just moved to Monash from University of Auckland . Discussions were also held with Prof. Li about potential collaboration in coal liquefaction and Prof. A. Hoadley about coal drying.

2. Page proofs of the 3 rd edition of the Handbook of Industrial Drying have started to roll in; about one-third of the book is completed as of this date. The whole book should be typeset by end of May 2006. Prof. Mujumdar will prepare subject index of the entire book consisting of 54 chapters. It is about 70% different from the already massive second edition. As the Editor as well as principal author (23 chapters authored or co-authored by him), Prof. Mujumdar hopes this book will become a standard reference work for the next 15 years or so.

3. With Professor E. Tsotsas of University of Magdenberg , Germany , Prof. Mujumdar is editing a new series of books entitled Modern Drying Technology to be published by Wiley in Germany . First volume is now ready for review.

4. A Handbook focusing on mathematical modeling in food processing has just been sent to publisher. A joint effort with colleagues in USA and Oman , this book has a number of unique features that should be useful in other engineering areas as well.

5. The RP on explosive boiling based micro-actuators has just been completed. The final report is due end of May 2006. Prasanta is working hard on completing it on time.

6. Shijun has submitted his PhD thesis and awaiting final defense in 3-4 months from now.

7. Atiq has nearly completed his PhD proposal due for defense within a month

8. Prof. Mujumdar is advising on a new coal drying technology project with international partners in Indonesia , Singapore and Australia .

9. Drying Technology journal celebrates its 25 th year next year. Two special anniversary issues will appear early in 2007.

10. French translation of Mujumdar's Practical Guide to Industrial Drying is now ready in Cameroon , Africa . A Thai version is also being prepared in Thailand . Already the book has appeared in Chinese, Indonesian and Hungarian. It was reprinted twice in India and once in Nigeria . A third edition of the book will appear in late 2007.

11. Prof. Mujumdar will deliver two plenary lectures in the next few months. One at IDS2006 in Bupadest and the other in Auckland , New Zealand . Both deal with R&D, innovation and effect of globalization, the former will focus on drying technologies and the latter on engineering in general.

12. Aside from the various book projects completed recently and some to be completed within the next year, we already have over 20 journal papers accepted or published in first half of the year with a number of conference papers accepted as well. Six FYP projects were completed in current academic year.

13. Invitation has been received to participate in Innovation based research centre at SINTEF/NTNU, Norway . Prof. Mujumdar will be external examiner for a PhD thesis at Helsinki University of Technology in October when he will also discuss potential cooperation in fuel cell modeling project that Poh He Joo is working on. A new M.Eng. student will join our group in July to work in FC area.

14. Currently Prof. Mujumdar is co-advising PhD student projects in China (2), India (2) and Iran (1).

April 16, 2006

1. Handbook of Industrial drying , 3rd edition ( 54 chapters) is at page proof stage. Authors will receive proofs during May 2006. They are requested to check and return them within 5 days of receipt.

2. Two new book projects are ongoing. One is entitled Drying Technologies or Foods , co-edited with Prof. X D Chen now of Monash University (earlier at University of Auckland , NZ). The second one is second edition of my book co-authored with Dr. T. Kudra ( Canada ). It is entitled Advanced Drying Technologies . A Chinese version appeared last year. Both are to be delivered to respective publishers by April 2007.

3. My Guide to Industrial Drying has been translated into Chinese and is with publisher now.

4. Dr Li Xin Huang is named assistant Editor of drying Technology- an International Journal from 2006 to 2009. He is also Guest Editor of a special theme issue of this journal on Spray drying (with Dr. X D Chen of Monash and Dr B.Bhandari of UNSW).

5. Wang Shijun is now employed with a firm in Singapore . Congratulations, Shijun! Ravi should be submitting his M Eng thesis in a month or so. Shijun's PhD thesis should be ready in 2 months too. Lou Zhengquan, Wu Zhonghua are next in line followed by Wang Xiangqi. Three new PhD students are being co-advised by me in China and Iran .

6. I have two Plenary lectures to give in next few months- one at IDS2006 in Budapest (August 2006) and the other at CHEMECA2006 in Auckland , NZ.

7. Mujumdar's Practical Guide to Industrial drying is being translated into Thai by Dr. Sakamon Devahastin(KMUTT) and his colleagues. This book will update some of the chapters during translation.

8. Professor Mujumdar is seconded fully to the new Engineering Science Program launched by NUS Faculty of Engineering. The ESP undergraduate program starts in July 2006 while the postgraduate program is expected to be initiated in 2007. He will continue his active association with the Mechanical Engineering Department.

March 14, 2006

New Doctor of Engineering Graduate at KMUTT, Bangkok:
Dr. Peamsuk Suvarankuta, jointly advised by Dr. Sakamon Devahastin and Dr. Arun S,. Mujumdar, NUS, received her Ph.D in Food Engineering from KMUTT, Bangkok Thailand on March 14, 2006 (See photo)

March 4, 2006

1. Prof. Mujumdar was Principal Lecturer and mamber of the Organizing Committee for Workshop held in Mumbai under the auspices of the newly launched World Forum on Crystallization. Filtration and Drying (WFCFD). The workshop attarcted over 150 industry participants while a similar number had to be declined admission due to lack of space. A faculty of 9 internationally recognized experts from USA, France, Germany,India etc presented lectures on the three topics of great interest to the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. WFCFD is a new non-profit Society that will promote R&D in these three unit operations around the world.

2. The 3rd Edition of the Handbook of Industrial Drying will appear in October 2006. Chinese translations of Practical Guide to Industrial drying and Advanced Drying Technologies appeared in late2005.

January 17, 2006

1. Professor Mujumdar was the Guest of Honour and Plenary speaker at the 4th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference held in Kolkata, India during December 13-15, 2005. He also presented four poster papers. He was awarded the Global Leadership in Drying R&D citation for his contributions to Asian countries as well as those from all over the world. The actual cittaion can be found under Honors and awards on this webpage. ADC07 is proposed to be held in Hong Kong in mid-2007.

2. Dr. Li Xin Huang, who obtained his PhD last year has been named Assistant Editor of Drying Technology effective this month. He has already guest-edited with colleagues in Australia and New Zealand a theme issue of the journal devoted to spray drying.

3. Professor Mujumdar has been formally invited to be a PhD advisor for a PhD project at Iran university of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran.

4. Drying Technology journal will celebrate its 25th year since its first issue appeared in 2007. A number of special issues will be published to commemorate the 25th anniversary. Prof. Mujumdar has been its Editor-in-Chief since 1988.

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December 6, 2005

A Statistical Summary of TPR Group Productivity during 2005

Some quotable quotes on statistics:

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
--Mark Twain

A statistician is one who saysthat, if you place one foot in the oven and the other on ice on average you are comfortable.
--Anon.

Despite these "mean" (pun unintended!) statements about statistics, here is a brief summary of what our TPR group at NUS has accomplished during 2005.

I believe the productivity is high by any standards considering the resources used. I wish to congratulate all members of the TPR group- here at NUS as well as our international collaborators- for their major contribution to our creditable productivity.

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Here are the numbers in a nutshell

Over 25 journal papers
Over 20 conference papers
6 Plenary/Keynote lectures
Active organization of 2 conferences, 2 workshops
2 books
12 journal issues
2 book translations( done in China)
Editing of one Handbook( 2000+ pages; 54 chapters)
2 new book projects (to be completed in 2006)
Authorship of some 20+ book chapters
Reviews of 150+ papers for 30+ journals
Several PhD theses (NUS and elsewhere)
Several new projects in Energy Systems area and Engineering Science
One major award (Global Leadership Award at ADC05, Kolkata, India).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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November 25, 2005

1. Professor Mujumdar will receive "Global Leadership in Drying R&D Award" at the 4th Asia-Pacific Drying conference (ADC05) to be held in Kolkata, India ,December 12-15, 2005. He will also deliver the Plenary Lecture of this Conference. One of his M.Eng.(1980) students from McGill University , now CEO and President of two major companies head-quartered in Kolkata will be one of the honored guests at this Conference.

2. Probably an unusual but interesting record of sorts was set in the "journal peer review process' over a 3 week period spanning October/November 2005, when Prof. Mujumdar was requested to review 16 papers by 14 international journals, on top of the usual Drying Technology journal submissions he reviews routinely. He reviewed all except one within 3 hours to 3 days of receipt (with under 40% acceptance rate). Probably another record was set by the Editor of one of the journals who arrived at his decision within 24 hours of submission of the paper to his journal (regrettably a negative one which, however, saved precious review time for other referees!). This is lightening fast as journal publication goes! Clearly, there is danger of Reviewer Fatigue at this pace!
3. Prof. Mujumdar will co-edit over the next 15 months with Prof. X.D. Chen of University of Auckland, NZ, a new book focusing on Food Dehydration Technologies for a major UK publisher. Interest in drying is far from being "dried"! His 54-chapter 3rd Edition of Handbook of Industrial Drying (Taylor & Francis) is in press currently; Prof. Mujumdar has authored or co-authored 24 chapters for this multi-volume tome!

4. The Contents pages of Drying Technology journal will now appear in the Chinese Drying Technology Journal in English as well as Chinese. This will make the large Chinese readership aware of R&D being done internationally and also make DRT visible in China.

5. An International Workshop on Crystallization, Filtration and Drying (IWCFD2006) will be held in Mumbai in Mumbai in the last week of February 2006 mainly for the fast-growing Pharmaceutical indusry in India. Professors from USA and Germany will complement Prof. Mujumdar and Dr. B.N. Thorat of UICT, Mumbai, in delivering the lectures.

6. An Associate Editor of DRT, Prof. Guohua Chen of HKUST, has been named Regional Editor of Seaparations and Purification by Elsevier. Congratulations, Guohua.
Prof. Mujumdar is named Consuting Editor of the new International Journal of Postharvet Technology (Inderscience, Switzerland) and a member of the EAB of the e-journal International Journal of Food Engineering (Bepress, USA).

7. Our TRP group now has active research collaborations in Brazil, Thailand, India, China, Japan, and Iran with doctoral level students involved in all projects. True globalization!

October 30, 2005

1. Dr Huang Li Xin ,Nanjing, China has been named Assistant Editor of Drying Technology-An International Journal published by Taylor & Francis effective January 2006. Dr Huang is also guest-editing a special issue devoted to spray drying principles and applications.

2. Profesor Mujumdar has been named Consulting Editor of a new journal from Iderscience Publishers of Switzerland entitled International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation. (Click here for a flyer describing the journal).

3. Profesor Mujumdar will be a Plenary Speaker at CHEMECA2006 to be held in Auckland, New Zeland in September 2006. This is a biennial conference of the chemical engineering societies of Australia and New Zeland.

September 26, 2005

1. Li Xin Huang received his PhD degree formally from NUS in May 2005 when he successfully defended his thesis research. Congratulations to LiXin on this success. He is now back in Nanjing, China carrying out R&D.

2. Professor Mujumdar presented a Plenary Lecture at the XI Polish Drying Conference held in Poznan, Poland, September 13-16, 2005. This successful series started in 1972 when Professor C. Strumillo founded it. About 100 participants from 10 countries contributed to a high quality program of some 80 papers.

3. Dr Li Xin Huang and Professor Mujumdar presented a joint Plenary lecture at the latest China Drying Conference held in Nanjing ,China, September 2005. Some 170 attended were present at this conference which attracted over 120 papers. This reflects the continuing interest in Drying R&D as China marches on in rapid industrial development.

4. The Chinese version of Professor Mujumdar's Advanced drying Technology book (Marcel Dekker, 2002) was inaugurated at CDC ,Nanjing. Apparently this is already a major success with the copies brought to the conference were all sold out. In fact copies in Nanjing book stores were also sold out soon upon release. His recent book entitled Practical Guide to Industrial Design is being translated in Chinese for release soon. An article by Dr. Z X Gong detailing Professor Mujumdar's contributions to the development of drying R&D in China over two decades has also appeared in a Chinese journal.

5. Although he cannot attend the conference on Energy Systems in Moscow, Russia, in October 2005 , Professor Mujumdar's keynote lecture will be co-authored and presented by Dr. Odilio Alves-Filho of Norway.

6. Professor Mujumdar is Honorary Chairman and Plenary Speaker at the fourth Asia-Pacific Drying Conference to be held in December 2005 in Kolkatta,India.

7. News from Research Group members: Lou Zhengquan and Prasanta Dey presented research papers at major conferences in San Francisco and in Cairo, respectively. Numerous research papers co-authored by Poh Hee Joo, Wu Zhonghua, Wang Shijun, Wang Xiangqi, and Lou Zhengquan have been accepted for publication by several journals.In addition numerous papers with international collaborators ( notably Dr Sakamon Devahastin and Dr. B.N. Thorat) have also been accepted by refereed journals.

8. The 26-kg package of manuscripts for the 55-chapter 3rd edition of the Handbook of Industrial Drying (CRC Press,Taylor & Francis) has been shipped to the publisher. All authors are requested to send in their paperwork to the publisher, as requested.

9. Professor Mujumdar is now fully seconded to the newly initiated Engineering Science Program (ESP) of the Faculty of Engineering at NUS. Details can be found on NUS website. He will also continue fully with his current responsibilities with the mechanical engineering department until further notice.

April, 2005

Recent Ph.D. Thesis. Co-Advised by Prof. A. S. Mujumdar.
Research Advisor: Prof. Min Zhang, Food Science Department, Southern Yangze University, Wuxi, CHINA
Name of Candidate: Liu Ping Fan
Thesis Title: Technology and Modelling Vacuum Frying of Carrot for Fat Reduction

December, 2004

Prof. A. S. Mujumdar awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by IWSID and Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology, December 22, 2004. (Citation)

October, 2004

Saluting a World Pioneer in Thermal Drying Technologies, Engineering Research Highlight, FoE Engg Res News.

December 17, 2003

In the recent past, Professor Mujumdar delivered Keynote lectures in the area of transport processes or drying technologies at several international conferences including:

14th International Symposium on Transport Phenomena, Bali, July 2003
International Energy Forum, Moscow, May 2003 (with Dr. O. Alves-Filho,Norway)
2nd Nordic Drying Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark ,June 2003
3rd Asia-Pacific Drying Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, Septemeber 2003
EuroDry2003 Conference, Crete ,Greece, September 2003 (With Dr O. Alves-Filho,Norway)
Grain Drying in South Asia Seminar, Durgapur, India, December 2003. Also delivered Inaugural Lecture as Chief Guest.

Also, he lectured in Drying Workshops held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand (KMUTT), Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam and Bogor, Indonesia in 2003.

In December he also visited Helsinki University of Technology, Finland as the Opponent (External Examiner) Doctor of Science thesis.

Professor Tao Wenyi, President of Southern Yangtze University conferred on Professor Mujumdar Honorary Visiting Professorship of his University in November 2003. He presented a series of lectures at SYU as well as several R&D centers in Wuxi and Cixi in China. He co-advises two doctoral students in Food Engineering at SYU with Prof. Zhang Min in the area of vacuum frying and hybrid freeze and air drying.

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