Educational Record

PhD (Chemical Engineering) from Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 2009
ME (First Class Honours) from University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, 2004
BE (First Class Distinction) from Gujarat University, Gujarat, India, 2001

Awards

1.    2007, The Best Paper Award, The 5th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference, 13-15 August 2007, Hong Kong, China.
2.    2007, Young Food Researchers Award, By Australian Food Engineering Association (Victoria Branch), 22nd May 2007, Melbourne, Australia.
3.    2006, The 2006 Graeme Jameson Award (Highly Commended), By Australasian Particle Technology Society, at Chemeca 2006 Conference, Auckland, New Zealand.

Publications

Published Book Chapters

1.    Chen, X.D. and Patel, K.C. (2008). Biological changes during food drying processes. In X.D. Chen and A.S. Mujumdar (Eds.), Drying Technologies in Food Processing, pp. 90-112, Blackwell, UK.
2.    Bhandari, B.; Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2008). Spray drying of food materials- process and product characteristics. In X.D. Chen and A.S. Mujumdar (Eds.), DryingTechnologies in Food Processing, pp. 113-159, Blackwell, UK.

Referred Journal Papers

1.    Patel, K.C., Chen, X.D., Lin, S.X.Q and Adhikari, B. (2009). A composite reaction engineering approach to drying of aqueous sucrose, maltodextrin (DE6) and their mixtures, AIChE Journal, 55(1), 232-242. PDF

2.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2008). Surface-centre temperature differences within milk droplets during convective drying and drying-based Biot number analysis, AIChE Journal, 54(12), 3273-3290. PDF
3.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2008). Sensitivity analysis of the reaction engineering approach to modeling spray drying of whey proteins concentrate, Drying Technology, 26(11), 1334-1343. PDF
4.    Chen, X.D. and Patel, K.C. (2008). Manufacturing better quality food powders from spray drying and subsequent treatments, Drying Technology, 26(11), 1313-1318. PDF
5.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2008). Drying of Aqueous Lactose Solutions in a Single Stream Dryer, Trans. IChemE, Part C: Food and Bioproducts Processing, 86(3), 185- 197. PDF
6.    Wu, W.D.; Patel, K.C.; Rogers, S. and Chen, X.D. (2007). Monodisperse Droplet Generators as Potential Atomizers for Spray Drying Technology, Drying Technology, 25(12), 1907-1916. PDF
7.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2007). Production of spherical and uniform-sized particles using a laboratory ink-jet spray dryer, Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2(5), 415-430. PDF
8.    Chen, X.D. and Patel, K.C. (2007). Micro-organism inactivation during drying of small droplets or thin-layer slabs – A critical review of existing kinetics models and an appraisal of the drying rate dependent model, Journal of Food Engineering, 82(1), 1-10. PDF
9.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2005). Prediction of spray-dried product quality using two simple drying kinetics models, Journal of Food Process Engineering, 28(6), 567- 594. PDF
10.    Patel, K.C.; Chen, X.D. and Kar, S. (2005). The temperature uniformity during drying of a colloidal liquid droplet, Drying Technology, 23(12), 2337-2367. PDF

Referred Conference Papers and Abstracts

1.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2008). The reaction engineering approach to estimate surface properties of aqueous droplets during convective drying, International Drying Symposium 2008, 9-12 November 2008, Hyderabad, India. PDF

2.    Patel, K.C and Chen, X.D. (2007). Sensitivity analysis of the reaction engineering approach to modeling spray drying of whey proteins concentrate, In Proceeding of The 5th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference, pp 276-281, 13-15 August 2007, Hong Kong, China. PDF
3.    Patel, K.C; Wu, W.D. and Chen, X.D. (2007). Review on generation of monodisperse sprays for manufacturing micron-size uniform particles using a spray drying technique, In Proceeding of The 5th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference, pp 282-287, 13-15 August 2007, Hong Kong, China. PDF
4.    Chen, X.D. and Patel, K.C (2007). Making quality food particles from spray drying and subsequent treatments, In Proceeding of The 5th Asia-Pacific Drying Conference, pp 9-16, 13-15 August 2007, Hong Kong, China. PDF
5.    Patel, K.C and Chen, X.D. (2006). Development of a laboratory ink-jet spray dryer, In CD-ROM of Chemeca 2006 Conference, 17-20 September 2006, Auckland, New Zealand. PDF
6.    Patel, K.C.; Chen, X.D. and Lin, SX.Q. (2005). Heat transfer modelling for the solid containing liquid droplets during spray drying, Fifth Pacific-Asia Rim Thermal Sciences and Energy Engineering Workshop (PaRTSEE-5), 28-29 April 2005, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. (Abstract and Presentation).
7.    Patel, K.C. and Chen, X.D. (2005). Estimation of the surface-centre temperature differences within a droplet during spray drying, In Proceedings of Joint Conference of SCENZ/FEANZ, 29 June 2005, Christchurch, New Zealand. (Abstract and Presentation).
8.    Patel, K.C and Chen, X.D. (2004). Mathematical modelling for plug-flow spray dryer, In CD-ROM of Chemeca 2004 Conference, 26-28 September 2004, Sydney, Australia. PDF
9.    Patel, K.C and Chen, X.D. (2004). Comparison of two drying kinetics models using drying of single uniform droplets, In Proceedings of Joint SCENZ/ FEANZ/SMNZI Conference, 2 July 2004, Hamilton, New Zealand. PDF

Professional Experience

1.    Research Associate: March 2004 to July 2004

Project: Micro-encapsulation of mushroom spores using different techniques

Objectives: To improve the microbiological stability of mushroom spores
Sponsor: The HortResearch, Hamilton, New Zealand
2.    Teaching Assistant: August 2004 to November 2006
Duties: Tutoring, lab demonstration and marking of assignments and lab-reports for undergraduate studies at the University of Auckland and Monash University.
Main subjects: Introduction to Process Engineering, Food Process Engineering, Engineering Biotechnology, Heat and Mass Transfer, Transport Phenomena, Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics.
3.    Reviewer: Food and Bioproducts Processing, Chemical Engineering Research and Design, International Journal of Food Engineering.

Research Interests

·    Heat and mass transfer to and from the liquid droplet and the flat geometry

·    Drying kinetics of droplets and thin-layer porous materials

·    Dryer-wide simulation and software development
·    Prediction of overall quality of food and dairy powders
·    Designing of spray drying experimental techniques
·    Inactivation of micro-organisms and enzymes during food processing
·    Microencapsulation of bioactive components
·    Colloidal drug delivery and drug-release kinetics
·    Microfluidics and monodisperse droplet generation
·    Solids formation during drying using a multicomponent diffusion approach

Other Interests

·    Musical – playing keyboard, listening music
·    Sports – volleyball, cricket, badminton
·    Riding bike and driving car
·    Swimming, aerobics