Royal Society Honour for Manchester Chemical Engineer

07 Feb 2018

Professor Anton A. Kiss awarded highly esteemed Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award

University chemical engineer Professor Anton A. Kiss has been awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award.

Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the scheme aims to provide universities with additional support to enable them to recruit or retain respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential to the UK.

The award recognises the expertise of Professor Kiss in understanding, development and design of innovative eco-efficient chemical processes of industrial importance. Professor Anton Kiss, from the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, is focusing on separation aspects that play a critical role in biorefineries (and are responsible for the largest part of costs) by developing novel and highly-efficient systems for the separation of valuable products from bio-resources. Moving away from fossil-fuels, biorefineries are an important part of a sustainable economy, converting biomass (i.e. the natural storage of solar energy) into biofuels, power, heat, and value-added chemicals.

On receiving this prestigious award, Professor Anton Kiss said: “It is a great honour for me and I am delighted to receive the Wolfson Research Merit Award. I am also very grateful to the Royal Society and The University of Manchester for their kind support. Having only recently started in the UK, I am eagerly looking forward to exploring novel research avenues during the course of this fellowship.“

“This prestigious award will allow me to focus on my future research at Manchester with a 5+ year horizon, building on my wealth of industrial expertise in the chemical process industry as well as launching some exciting new areas of investigation. As professor and chair in chemical engineering, it will also enable me to develop the next generation of chemical engineers & early career academics.”

“The internationally leading approach taken is based on a vision of applying process intensification principles (i.e. achieving more by doing less but better) in separation technology using a systems engineering approach (i.e. optimizing the complete system instead of each individual unit). This approach will lead to innovative sustainable processes, novel materials, as well as methods and tools that will largely extend the toolbox developed so far by the petro-chemical industry.”

Professor Chris Hardacre, Head of the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at The University of Manchester, said: “These awards are extremely competitive and very prestigious hence the department is thrilled that Tony Kiss was successful and received this prominent award, which is not so often given to engineers. This is a wonderful recognition of Tony’s excellence in research and a reflection of his high international standing and outstanding quality of his work.”

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

The Wolfson Foundation is a grant-making charity established in 1955. Funding is given to support and promote excellence in the fields of science and many others.