Pamela Ceron Chafla

Name: 
Pamela Ceron Chafla
Nationality: 
Ecuadorean
Project ID: 
ESR02
Steering Product Formation in High-Pressure Digestion Systems
Short CV / biography: 

Master’s degree in Environmental Technology and Engineering (IMETE) from Unesco IHE, UCT Prague and Ghent University (2012-2014)
Thesis: Optimization of a two-stage fermentation process for PHB production

Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) with a minor degree in Chemical Engineering (2006-2012)
Graduation project: Physicochemical treatment system for tannery effluents

Working experience as National/international Environmental Consultant, lecturer in Life Cycle Assessment, Field Engineer and Research Assistant

Short description of my topic: 

Autogenerative High Pressure Anaerobic Digestion systems (AHPD) have been used to produce biogas with improved quality (90-95% methane content) and at a pressure suitable for high grade use. This technology has also proven to produce other metabolites (carboxylates), that by themselves or through further conversion, could be of interest for the chemical industry. It is expected that specific pressure effects influence the kinetics of mixed culture fermentations (e.g. role of the CO2 partial pressure) and eventually the product spectrum. This project aims to further address these effects and determine to what extent they can be exploited to improve the production yield and increase the selectivity of a HPD system for carboxylates production. The feasibility of treating simple and complex substrates, mechanisms for controlling the product spectrum as well as the requirements for process parameters optimization, reactor design and alternatives for downstream processing will be further addressed along the research.

My progress / state of the art : 

Currently developing the conceptual framework and experimental design that will help to elucidate the effects of CO2 partial pressure in Volatile Fatty Acids (VFAs) product spectrum during the degradation of a synthetic substrate at different operational temperature in HPD systems.

 

 

Pamela on LinkedIn

Pamela on Researchgate