Federico Volpin, Postgraduate Student at ARC Research Hub, Energy efficient separation

Federico Volpin, Postgraduate Student at ARC Research Hub, Energy efficient separation

Summary

Membrane Process Engineer with a special focus on forward and reverse osmosis, wastewater reuse and resource recovery. 
Currently based in Sydney, but willing to relocate even outside of Australia.

My current research interest includes:

- Energy and water production from commercial fertilizers - Objective: Build a prototype to quantify water and power output and density by end 2019.

- Fertilizer production from source-separated human urine via a combination of pervaporation coupled with crystallization. Lab scale design and optimization are currently on-going. Ultimately the designed pilot plant will be operated and the quality and safety of the fertilizer investigated.

- Hybrid forward osmosis-reverse osmosis pilot plant operation. Membrane fouling and process optimization are investigated when different wastewater (WW) are used e.g., municipal WW, dairy WW, impaired WW .

- System optimization and techno/economic feasibility study of Membrane Bioreactor coupled with Fertilizer Driven Forward Osmosis (FDFO) process. 

Previously involved in the R&D department of Aquaporin A/S. My tasks covered from pilot-scale testing to system optimization, techno/economic analysis and process analysis.

Contact info

Location: Sydney, Australia

Industry Experience

Education: PhD

Years of experience: 1 to 5 years

Work Experience

PhD Candidate

University of Technology Sydney

Experimental and modelling-based approach for novel applications of forward osmosis/pressureretarded osmosis and membrane pervaporation. 

Research Assistant

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Collaborative project on simultaneous nutrients recovery and micropollutants removals fromhuman urine via low-cost forward osmosis process. 
This project is part of the ambitious project "The Science Walden" (http://sciencewalden.org/en/)

Assistant Researcher and Project Engineer

AquaPorin- in insolvency

- Delivered a pilot scale forward osmosis plant for the up-concentration of dairy wastewater.

- Operated a hybrid Forward osmosis/reverse osmosis pilot plant to treat Dairy industry wastewater effluents.

Industry Expertise

  • Nanotechnology
  • Water Quality
  • Agricultural
  • Filtration
  • Chemistry
  • Thin Film
  • Nanocomposites
  • Nanofiltration
  • Simulation
  • Water and Wastewater Manager
  • ceramic water filters
  • Data Science