Dr Daniel Orejon Mantecon

Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering (Multiscale Thermofluids)

Email: 

Telephone: 

+44(0)131 6505735

Location: 

2.2005 James Clerk Maxwell Building

Social Media: 

Engineering Discipline: 

  • Chemical Engineering

Research Institute: 

  • Multiscale Thermofluids

Biography: 

Dani is a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the Institute for Multiscale Thermofluids (IMT) at the School of Engineering (SoE) at the University of Edinburgh (UoE) since August 2022 and prior to this, he was a Lecturer since December 2018. In addition, Dani holds a Visiting Associate Professor at WPI-I2CNER (World Premier International Research Center – International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research) at Kyushu University Japan since April 2019, from the São Carlos School of Engineering at the University of São Paulo in 2024, and a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) since May 2021.

Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh Dani was part of the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) at Kyushu University in Japan where he spent 3 years as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate and further 2 years as Assistant Professor. During this time, he also served as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in USA for 4 months. Before joining Kyushu University Dani completed PhD at the Institute for Materials and Processes (IMP) at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining the Institute of Materials and Processes (IMP), he carried out an internship at the Institute for Energy Systems (IES) of the UoE. Before joining the University of Edinburgh, Dani was an Undergraduate Research Assistant at AICIA (Andalusian Association for Research and Industrial Cooperation) and at the Chemical Engineering Department at The Higher Technical School of Engineering in Seville Spain where he obtained his 5-years Bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Industrial Chemical Engineering with one year completed at the Scuola di Ingegneria University of Bologna in Italy.

In addition, Dani acted as an Associate Editorship for the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (Elsevier) between January 2021 and December 2023 and as Foreign Expert Visitor at the School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China in 2023.

Academic Qualifications: 

5-year Bachelor/s in Environmental and Industrial Chemical Engineering (The Higher Technical School of Engineering, Seville, Spain 2009).

PhD Applied Physics of Droplet Phase-Change (Institute of Maerials and Processes, University of Edinburgh, 2013).

Postgraduate Certificate Academia in Practice PgCAP (University of Edinburgh, 2021)

Professional Qualifications and Memberships: 

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA, 2021)

Associate Editor for the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (Elsevier, 2021)

WPI-I2CNER Visiting Associate Professor at International Research Center – International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (Kyushu University Japan, 2019)

Associate Member Institution of Chemical Engineers (AMIChemE, 2015)

Member of the  Asociación de Científicos Españoles en Japón (ACE Japón, 2017)

Member of the American Physical Society (APS, 2016)

Member of the American Chemical Society (ACS, 2012)

Teaching: 

School Postgraduate Progression Committee (SPPC) Representative for the Institute for Multiscale Thermofluids (University of Edinburgh, 2019)

 School Postgraduate Experience Committee (SPEC) Representative for the Institute for Multiscale Thermofluids (University of Edinburgh, 2019)

Teaching Laboratory Manager for the Chemical Engineering Discipline (University of Edinburgh, 2020)

Course Organiser Practical Skills in Chemical Engineering CHEE08018 (University of Edinburgh, 2021)

Course Organiser CEL3 Chemical Engineering Laboratory 3 CHEE11028 (University of Edinburgh, 2019)

Academic Research Projects 5 CHEE11017 (University of Edinburgh, 2020)

Academic Industrial/Overseas Projects 5 CHEE11031 (University of Edinburgh, 2019)

Academic Study Project 4 CHEE10009 (University of Edinburgh, 2019)

Academic Design: Projects 4 CHEE10002 (University of Edinburgh, 2018-2020)

Research Interests: 

My research interests span from the statics of wetting interfacial phenomena to the dynamics of liquid films and droplets wetting and dewetting during phase-change during both evaporation and condensation influencing heat transfer on a wide range of wettability and structured surfaces and at multiple-scales. Advanced surfaces with embedded and controlled functionalities as well as bioinspired functional surfaces and their intimate interactions with liquid droplets undergoing phase-change for the better understanding of micro- and nano-scale phase-change heat transfer encompass my ultimate goals.

Fundamental Physics of Fluid Wetting and Evaporation Phase Change

Interactions between liquids and solid surfaces are ubiquitous in nature and are relevant to many everyday life, industrial, biological, medical and pharmaceutical applications. Wettability, micro- and nano-structures, chemical heterogeneities, temperature and pressure play an important role on the intimate interactions between solid surfaces and liquids of importance to self-cleaning, anti-fogging, anti-icing or other applications. Some collaboration institutions include: Kyushu University (Japan), University of Bordeaux (France), Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India).

Figure 5

Figure from Fukatani et al., PRE 2016 - Raw Infrared thermography data data at an ambient temperature of 40 degrees Celsius and different relative humidity (a) RH = 35% and (b) RH = 90% at t = 10 s, 20 s, 30 s, 40 s, and 100 s.

Fundamental Physics of Fluid Wetting, Condensation Phase Change and Vapour Absorption

Micro- and nano-structured surfaces play a paramount role on the dynamics of triple-phase contact line during wetting and condensation phase-change. More specifically, wetting, nucleation, droplet growth, coalescence and shedding during evaporation/condensation are paramount for the design of more efficient heat transfer processes and energy systems. Both fundamental and applied efforts are being put here. Collaborations with renowned universities such as: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Waterloo Institute for Nanotehcnology University of Waterloo (Canada), Stevens Institute of Technology (USA) are taking place in this topic.

           Back cover

(left) Figure from Orejon et al. Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 2017 - Simultaneous Dropwise/Filmwise Condensation on hydrophilic structured pillared surfaces function of the pillar geometry parameters along with theoretical heat transfer.

(right) Figure from Wang et al. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2019 - Water vapor uptake into hygroscopic lithium bromide desiccant droplets: mechanisms of droplet growth and spreading Back Cover.

 

Effect of Surrounding Environment on Wetting and Phase-Change

A new avenue for the manufacturing of micro-/nano-structured metallic superhydrophobic surfaces via ambient exposure has been demonstrated as a consequence of the adsorption of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) ever present in the environment, which have led to high impact factor publications, invited presentations and a Fellowship application. The effect of surrounding environment has been overlooked in the past decades. We demonstrate the strong interplay between ambient composition on droplet-surface interactions and on the dynamics of evaporation and condensation. Collaborations in this are involve: University Illinois Urbana-Champaign (USA), Maryland University (USA), Tsinghua University (China), Iowa State University (USA), Kyushu University (Japan).

Figure 1

Figure from Xiao et al. ACS Nano 2019 - Wetting to non-wetting transition on hierarchical copper oxide (CuO): θa (deg), vs. VOCs exposure time, t (days), enabling coalescence-induced droplet jumping.

 

Functional Surfaces for Droplet Manipulation and Control via Wettability Patterning or Surface Structure 

The fine control and tune of wettability and surface structure patterns inducing wettability gradients can be further exploited for the accurate manipulation and migration of liquid droplets and films on solid surfaces of imoprtance to microfluidic applications amongst others. Collaborations in this area include: University of Bordeaux (France) and Waterloo Institute for Nanotehcnology University of Waterloo (Canada), amongst others.

 

 Droplet migration during condensation on chemically patterned micropillars          Figure

(left) Figure from Orejon et al. RSC Advances 2016 - Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy ESEM image and schematics of droplet held on the edge of the micropillar migrating to the hydrophobic side-wall to the hydrophilic top surface. Scale bar is 50 μm.

(right) Figure from Zhao et al. APL 2020 - Snapshots of a droplet moving across the boundary. Blue dots represents the droplet center of mass and dashed lines the position of the boundary.

Further Information: 

I am always open to enquire for supervision of self-funded and sponsored PhDs as well as hosting visiting researchers from all over the world.

Here are some useful links with some potential Scholarships:

School of Engineering University of Edinburgh:

https://registryservices.ed.ac.uk/student-funding/postgraduate/international/science-engineering/school-of-engineering 

https://registryservices.ed.ac.uk/student-funding/postgraduate/international/other-funding

Commonwealth PhD Scholarships for Low Income Countries:

https://cscuk.fcdo.gov.uk/scholarships/commonwealth-phd-scholarships-for-least-developed-countries-and-vulnerable-states/

Other issues on concerns please reach at d.orejon@ed.ac.uk