John Chew

John Chew is a Professor at the University of Bath, serving as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Design. He leads research at the Water Innovation and Research Centre (WIRC) and the IAAPS, focusing on sustainable chemical engineering solutions.

• PhD in Chemical Engineering (University of Cambridge, 2005)

His research spans five core areas:

• Air Purification: Developing novel adsorbent structures (hollow fibres, polymeric foams) to reduce pressure drop while capturing toxic species, integrating heat-absorbing phase change materials for fire scenarios.
• Sustainable Membranes: 3D-printed asymmetric membranes with anti-fouling properties, coupled with the Fluid Dynamic Gauging (FDG) technique for real-time fouling measurement.
• Water/Wastewater Treatment: Microbubble-based microplastic removal and membrane separation of nanoplastics, studying gas-liquid hydrodynamics and interfacial interactions.
• Hydrogen Storage: Computational analysis of cryogenic tank thermodynamics to address boil-off and thermal stratification challenges in aviation/automotive sectors.
• AI/ML Applications: Co-developing AI-guided catalyst discovery and physics-informed neural networks for industrial process modeling.

  Current projects include:

  • GKN Prosperity Partnership (EPSRC, 2023-2028): Hydrogen storage solutions for aircraft.
  • AI/ML Book (2023-present): Application in chemical engineering workflows.
  • KTP with ioMosaic (2025-2028): Industry-academia knowledge transfer in sustainable systems.