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Profile

Business Position: Vice President Sales & Buss. Dev.
Company: ANDRITZ AG
Year of Birth: 1968
Years in Industry: 25
Nationality: Swiss / Venezuelan
Phone: +41 79 765 48 11
Email: [email protected]

Alain has been working in various roles in air pollution control since the beginning of professional career. After completing his Chemical Engineering studies (1994) with a PhD in heterogeneous catalysis (1997) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, Alain joined ABB Corporate Laboratories in Baden-Dättwil (Switzerland). As young research engineer, Alain work on different techniques, including dielectric barrier discharge, to tranform carbon dioxide into valuable products (methanol, …).

Once graduated (2002) from the W. E. Simon Graduate Scholl of Business Administration at the University of Rochester (NY, USA), Alain took the responsibilities of the marketing activities for the EMEA region with Alstom Power Environmental Control Systems (ECS) segment. After some years (2006), he took again a more technical role by leading the R&D program and its execution for the Air Quality Control Systems business of Alstom Power Services. He led the global team of research engineers in the US, India and Sweden, including the power laboratory in Växjö. The subsequent role of Global AQCS Product Manager (2011) enabled him to launch the 4th generation of the Switched Integrated Rectifier (SIR) to energize the ESP.

Alain also gained operational experience by leading (2014-2017) the local service centers in the Northern part of Latin America. With the GE acquisition (2017), Alain took again the role of Global AQCS Product Manager, covering all technologies from dedusting, DeSOx, DeNOx and other techniques to abate emissions from industrial installations.

In 2022, Alain joined the ANDRITZ Group1) where he leads the Global Sales and Business Development activities for the Air Pollution Control  division.

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NTPC has approx. 25% power contribution in India and having more than 150 coal fired units ranging from 110 MW to 800 MW. Total thermal installed capacity of NTPC is more than 60000MW and 20000MW under construction/under tendering.
Presently working as General Manager in Corporate Centre Engineering Division of NTPC Ltd and heading Energy Transition with Air pollution Control Department and also involved in firing of hydrogen/Methanol in Gas turbine. Graduated in Mechanical Engineering from IET Lucknow in 1990 and thereafter completed MTech from I.I.T Delhi in 1991.
An Mechanical Engineering professional with more than 33 years experience in thermal power plants in the area of engineering and Operation & maintenance of Steam Generator& ESP. Out of which more than 25 years of experience in Engineering and design of subcritical, supercritical and ultra supercritical Steam generator & its auxiliaries, Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) and other Environmental systems like FGD & DeNOx system. Involved in the preparation of tender documents for Steam generator, ESP Packages for the power plants ranging 200MW to 800MW. played key role in planning and implementation strategies of FGD and De-NOx system in NTPC. Primarily involved in all SCR/SNCR pilots test done in NTPC. Also having 5 years experience of Operation and Commissioning of thermal power plants specifically in Steam Generator area & ESP area.
Additionally, plays a key role in policy advocacy for various government bodies, including CEA, Niti Aayog and MoEFCC, contributing expertise in areas such as carbon capture, storage, and utilization, the
flexibilization of thermal power plants, and the finalization of NOx norms. Also, the team leader of NTPC team pioneering the development of Advanced Ultra Super Critical Technology being set up jointly by NTPC and BHEL.
Involved in R&M of ESP of various plants of NTPC. Adoption of Moving Electrode Electrostatic Precipitator (MEEP) in case of space constraint in Rihand Plant of NTPC and High Frequency Transformer Rectifier (HFTR) etc. to reduce SPM by doing R&M of ESP of old plants. Also ESP- electrode spacing increased from 300mm to 400mm in new plants.
Introduced Sensors in ESP in 1st field hopper to see the level contour. CFD modelling in place of physical modelling also tried for ESP.

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Profile

Business Position: Associate Professor
Company: Budapest University of Technology and
Economics
Year of Birth: 1972
Years in Industry: 28 (cooperation with industrial partners)
Nationality: Hungarian
Phone: +36 1 463 2904
Email: [email protected]

Istvan Kiss was graduated in 1995 as an electrical engineer in 1995 at the Technical University of Budapest. His MSc thesis was connected to the numerical calculation of the distribution of electric field in the presence of space charge. Although it was used for several purposes in insulation engineering, it was clear that modelling of space charge is vital in case of electrostatic precipitators. In cooperation with the Department of Fluid Mechanics, a new ESP model was created which was the basis of his PhD thesis.

As a young researcher with PhD degree, he was involved in the works of the Department High Voltage Engineering and Equipment led by Prof. Istvan Berta. Dr. Kiss was involved in several industrial projects and connecting research works, mainly upgrading ESP-s because of the change of the technology producing the gas to be cleaned. In these works, application of the ESP model was very useful.

He also took part with his software development and numerical modelling skills in electrothermal and magnetohydrodynamic analysis of aluminium smelters in the USA.

As a member of the Working Party “Static Electricity in the Process Industries” he was deeply involved into the analysis of risks arising from electrostatic charging and discharges. Ha was one of the pioneers using soft computing methods in this field. Results obtained here inspired him to analyse similar risks in electrostatic precipitators. Normally no explosive atmosphere is allowed in EPS-s because breakdowns are permanently present, but in some very rear cases fire or explosion can happen. To reduce such risk below the tolerable was also an important field of his interest.

Numerical and laboratory analysis of electrical discharges is also a connection between two important fields of his interest: electrostatic precipitation and lightning protection. He is the member of the Scientific Committee of Int. Conf. on Lightning Protection (ICLP).

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Marek Kocik was born in 1970 in Warsaw, Poland. He pursued his education at the University of Gdansk, where he earned a Master of Science degree in experimental physics, specializing in atomic spectroscopy, in 1996. He subsequently obtained his Ph.D. at the Institute of Fluid Flow Machinery, Polish Academy of Sciences, in 2002. Currently, he holds the position of Associate Professor and serves as the Head of the Department of Applications of Plasma and Laser Engineering.

Dr. Kocik has been honored as a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at Oita University during two distinct periods, 2003-2004 and 2017-2018. In addition, he was a Visiting Professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, in 2006. His research interests are diverse and encompass laser spectroscopy, diagnostics of non-thermal plasma, electrostatic precipitator diagnostics, electro-hydrodynamic flows, and laser applications in micromachining.

To date, he has co-authored 60 peer-reviewed papers and has presented over 120 contributions at various conferences on these subjects. His current research endeavors concentrate on development of small-scale electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) and detection of nitrogen metastable molecules in non-thermal plasma utilizing a modified laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) technique. Furthermore, he has collaborated as an expert with numerous industrial partners, including PGE Group, ELWO, Analytics, Dantec, Daikin, Panasonic, and Menegon.

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Business Position: Principal Technical Leader
Company: EPRI
Years in Industry: 25
Nationality: USA
Phone: 650-855-2143
Email: [email protected]

Jose Sanchez is a Chemical Engineer with 23+ years of professional experience in the Combustion, Performance, and Environmental Controls Research Group at EPRI. During his tenure, Jose has worked under various roles. In early years, Jose worked as a Data Analyst and Project Engineer supporting studies for Combustion and NOx control. Jose also worked extensively with Computational Fluid Dynamics model development and analysis on various parts of the combustion process train.

In later years, Jose supported efforts as Project Manager for numerous R&D projects encompassing solutions for fossil-fired electrical generating units with respect to pulverized coal flow distribution, coal preparation, pulverization, and two-phase flow. In 2011, Jose brought the two-phase flow expertise to the particulate matter control area with a focus on Electrostatic Precipitator Performance. More recently Jose has also engaged in studies with wet flue gas desulfurization systems.

With the onset of additional computational power and algorithm breakthroughs, Jose has also focused on the application of artificial intelligence tools to enhance and troubleshoot the complex interactions affecting the combustion and environmental control systems mentioned earlier, including ESPs.

He achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from California State University at San Jose (SJSU). In addition to serving in the International Society for Electrostatic Precipitation Board of Directors, Jose is also a member of AIChE, ASME and ACS.

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Mr. Shiro Suzuki joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) after graduating from Yokohama National University, Kanagawa, Japan, in engineering science, in March 1993. He was assigned to an environmental equipment division in Kobe, and was involved in many projects as a person responsible for the detailed design, basic planning, research and development of electrostatic precipitator (ESP).

In particular, he played an important role as an engineer of wet type ESP which has two main
applications : SO3 removal from flue gas from boiler using high sulfur content fuel and dust removal from fuel gas from the steelmaking process. In flue gas from boiler using high sulfur content fuel, extremely fine sulfuric acid mist exists due to quenching process of wet FGD. Since these particles are fine and form long smoke color when exposed to sunlight, they are often considered as a visible pollution problem. To improve the plume condition from the stack, wet ESP is required. Furthermore, this problem occurs after a certain period of operation, and there is not enough space to install wet ESP. To solve this problem, he has advanced the technology of vertical type wet ESP and has supplied highly efficient vertical wet ESP in a small area in many projects.

Fuel gas from the steelmaking process such as blast furnace is used as a fuel for gas turbines, and
dust in the gas must be removed to protect the compressor and turbine blade. He contributed
greatly to the design of wet ESP for this application in domestic and overseas projects.
Since wet ESP is not affected by typical re-scattering or reverse ionization in terms of dry type ESP,
low ESP outlet concentration can be achieved, and it is sometimes installed as an environmental
device at the end of large thermal power plants. In order to expand such wet ESP technology, he
conducted technical cooperation with ESP manufacturer in China, and provided technical support
to each manufacturer as the person in charge of this project.

In October 2015, two of Japan’s leading ESP manufacturers, Mitsubishi and Hitachi, agreed to a
management integration, and a new company was established with headquarters in Yokohama.
With the launch of the new company, he was involved in the integration of Mitsubishi and Hitachi ESP
technologies as manager of ESP design division.

In April 2020, he assumed the General Manager of ESP designing department of the MHI Group,
and contributes to the development of ESP technology.

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Akinori Zukeran received the B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Musashi Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1994, 1996 and 1999, respectively. He started studying an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) in 1993, and investigated a mechanism of particle reentrainment and its preventing method in the ESP for highway road tunnels.
From 1999 to 2009, he had been a research engineer of an electrostatic precipitator for road tunnels with Fuji Electric Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan. He developed an ESP operated at high gas velocity of 13 m/s, an ESP with rectangular AC electric field (AC ESP) for preventing a particle re-entrainment and a rectangular AC high voltage power supply. The AC ESPs had been installed in Japanese and Korean tunnels. He also had installed some ESP plants in Japanese tunnels as the chief engineer.
Since 2010, he has been with Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Japan, where he is currently Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. His research interests are improving the collection efficiency for nano-particles, preventing particle reentrainment, saving the energy, simulating particle behavior and collecting suspended viruses in an ESP. He is also interested in applications of electrostatics in nonthermal plasma technology such as inactivating microorganisms and viruses, removal SOx or PAHs included in exhausted gases. He has authored or co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed papers.
Zukeran is the board member of the International Society for Electrostatic Precipitation (ISESP) and the Institute of Electrostatic Japan (IESJ). Also, he is a member of the IEEE, the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan, the Japan Institute of Marine Engineering and the Institute of Electrical Installation Engineers of Japan (IEIEJ). He received an international fellow award from ISESP in 2016, and a Prize Paper Award from the IEIEJ in 1998, the IESJ in 2019 and the IEEE IAS in 2021.