You are here: Home / Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering / About us / Our People / Academic Staff

Professor Geoff Barton

The School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Tel: +61 2 9351 3780
Fax: +61 2 9351 2854

E-mail:

Education

  • BE (Chemical Engineering, Honours 1), University of Sydney
  • PhD (Chemical Engineering), University of Sydney

Research area



My research interests are extremely broad as can be seen below and from my publications. Each area however may be defined by two characteristics:

  • a process systems engineering approach that seeks to blend insights from mathematical analysis with experimental data;
  • a desire to see research results used in industrial applications to solve real problems.

Current areas of interest/activity include the following. Note that the research being done is highly inter-disciplinary with my science/engineering students working very closely with researchers from a diversity of other fields. That is a major factor in what makes the work so fascinating.

Production of silica optical fibre

This is a two-stage process. A silica preform is "doped" (say with germanium) so as to define the refractive index profile of the light-guiding core. The modified chemical vapour deposition process used here is essentially a high temperature reactor system that we are currently studying (at the nearby Optical Fibre Technology Centre or OFTC) both experimentally and via the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models. The doped preform is then heated in a furnace and drawn down to 125μm diameter fibre. There are major process control and furnace modelling (via CFD) challenges to be answered here.

Production of microstructured optical polymer fibre (mPOF)

The team I work with at the OFTC has pioneered the development of low-cost fibres where the light-guidance is provided by a pattern of holes drilled into a polymer preform that is subsequently drawn to fibre. We have recently commissioned our own highly instrumented 3m tall draw tower - the data from which is being used to validate rheological models that describe the deformation of the hole structure during the drawing process. Our team won the 2004 Eureka Prize for ICT Innovation for its work on developing mPOF technology.

Optimising bioreactor productivity for therapeutic immune cells

This work has been carried out over a number of years with doctors from the nearby Westmead Institute for Cancer Research. The basic idea is to isolate human immune cells (cytotoxic T-lymphocytes or CTL), activate them against a particular disease producing agent (currently we are looking at cytomegalovirus or CMV), grow the activated cells in a suspension bioreactor, then infuse the cells back into the patient. The experimental work has proven challenging as has the mathematical modelling of the bioreactor - the latter because a "population balance" approach is necessary that incorporates the cell cycle dynamics. The next phase in this work is to use the validated cell growth model as the basis for an optimising control scheme that can be used on our experimental bioreactor.

Water purification

Work here covers a range of scales from the development of validated dynamic models (using the gPROMS software package) for one of Sydney Water's larger sewage treatment plants to the use of electrocoagulation as the basis for localised water treatment. For sewage plants, the challenge is to marry the flow hydraulics with bacterial growth and nutrient demand dynamics to provide a useful tool for process control and optimisation studies. A commercially oriented study has recently been commissioned to look at a suite of technology options (from biological degradation to electrocoagulation) for high-rate, low-cost removal of melloidin (common in the food industry when molasses is used as a feedstock) from process wastewater.

Other Research Interests



In recent years, my students have also been involved in various aspects of data-based modelling (ie neural networks and genetic programming), dynamic modelling of twin-screw extruders for the food industry, as well as financial (eg option derivative pricing) modelling. I also maintain an ongoing interest in many aspects of mineral engineering (eg flotation and electrowinning) from my time with the CSIRO.

Publications

  • Atkins, J.E., Barton, G.W. and Johnston, R.D., "Synthesis and Evaluation of Alternative Chalcopyrite Flotation Circuits", Int. J. Min. Proc., Vol. 16, pp. 29-42, 1986.
  • Johnston, R.D. and Barton, G.W., "Design and Performance Assessment of Control Systems using Singular Value Analysis", Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., Vol. 26, pp. 830-839, 1987.
  • Barton, G.W. and Perkins, J.D., "Experiences with SPEEDUP in the Mineral Processing Industry", Chem. Eng. Res. and Design, Vol. 66, pp. 408-418, 1988.
  • Marlin, T.E., Perkins, J.D., Barton, G.W. and Brisk, M.L., "Benefits from Process Control: Results of a Joint Industry-University Study", J. Proc. Cont., Vol. 1, pp. 68-83, 1991.
  • Barton, G.W. and Scott, A.C., "A Validated Mathematical Model for a Zinc Electrowinning Cell", Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, Vol. 22, pp. 104-115, 1992.
  • Krishnan, S., Barton, G.W. and Perkins, J.D., "Robust Parameter Estimation in On-line Optimisation. Part 2: Application to an Industrial Process", Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol. 17, pp. 663-669, 1993.
  • Barton, G.W. and Scott, A.C., "Industrial Applications of a Mathematical Model for the Zinc Electrowinning Process", Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, Vol. 24, pp. 377-383, 1994.
  • Sanderson, C.S., Barford, J.P. and Barton, G.W., "Use of a Detailed Computer Simulation in an Initial Study of Optimum Feeding Policies for Antibody Production by Monoclonal Antibodies", IChemE Symposium Series, Vol. 137, pp. 59-68, 1994.
  • Sanderson, C.S., Barford, J.P. and Barton, G.W., "Simulation and Dynamic Optimisation of Animal Cell Culture", Cytotechnology, Vol. 23, pp. 13-17, 1997.
  • Elsey, J., Riepenhausen, J., McKay, B., Barton, G.W. and Willis, M.J., "Modeling and Control of a Food Extrusion Process", Comp. and Chem. Engng., Vol. 21, pp. S361-S366, 1997.
  • McKay, B., Willis, M.J. and Barton, G.W., "Steady-State Modelling of Chemical Process Systems Using Genetic Programming", Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol. 21, pp. 981-996, 1997.
  • Musch, H.E., Barton, G.W., Langrish, T.A.G. and Brooke, A.S., "Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of Timber Drying", Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol. 22, pp. 415-425, 1998.
  • McKay, B., Sanderson, C.S., Willis, M., Barford, J.P. and Barton, G.W., "Evolving a Hybrid Model of a Fed-Batch Fermentation Process", Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 4-10, 1998.
  • Menoud, P., Wong, C.H., Robinson, H.A., Farquhar, A., Barford, J.P. and Barton, G.W., "Simultaneous Nitrification and Denitrification Using Siporax Packing", Water Science and Technology, Vol. 40, No. 4/5, pp. 153-160, 1999.
  • Lehne, M., Barton, G.W. and Langrish, T.A.G., "Comparison of Experimental and Modelling Studies for the Microwave Drying of Ironbark Timber", Drying Technology, Vol. 17, No. 10, pp. 2219-2233, 1999.
  • Dun, T., Schl'gl, E. and Barton, G.W., "Simulated Swaption Delta-Hedging in the Lognormal Forward Libor Model, International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 677-709, 2001.
  • Brace, A., Dun, T. and Barton, G.W., "Chapter 8: Towards a Central Interest Rate Model", Option Pricing, Interest Rates and Risk Management, Edited by Jouini, Cvitanic and Musiela, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  • Holt, P.K., Barton, G.W. and Mitchell, C.A., "Mathematical Analysis of a Batch Electrocoagulation Reactor", Water Science and Technology: Water Supply Vol. 2, No. 5-6, pp. 65-71, 2002.
  • Holt, P.K., Barton, G.W., Wark, M. and Mitchell, C.A., "A Quantitative Comparison Between Chemical Dosing and Electrocoagulation", Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, Vol. 211, Issues 2-3, pp. 233-248, 2002.
  • Wong, C.H., Barton, G.W. and Barford, J.P., "The Nitrogen Cycle and its Applications in Wastewater Treatment", The Handbook of Water and Wastewater Microbiology, Edited by Duncan Mara and Nigel Horan, pp. 427-439, Academic Press, ISBN 0-12-470100-0, 2003.
  • Lyytikainen, K., Zagari, J., Barton, G.W. and Canning, J., "Heat Transfer within a Microstructured Polymer Optical Fibre Preform", Modelling Simul. Mater. Sci. Eng., Vol. 11, pp. 1-11, 2003.
  • Foster, A.E., Forrester, K., Gottlieb, D.J., Barton, G.W., Romagnoli, J.A. and Bradstock, K.F., "Large-Scale Expansion of CMV-Specific Cytotoxic T Cells in Suspension Culture", Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Vol. 85, No. 2, pp. 138-146, 2004.
  • Barton, G.W., van Eijkelenborg, M.A, Henry, G., Large, M.C.J. and Zagari, J., "Fabrication of Microstructured Polymer Optical Fibres," Optical Fibre Technology, Vol. 10, pp. 325-335, 2004.
  • Barton, G.W., Law, S.H. and Phan, T.N., "Limitations to the manufacture of specialty optical fiber", Accepted for publication, Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, 2005.
  • Holt, P.K., Barton, G.W. and Mitchell, C.A., "The future for electrocoagulation as a localized water treatment technology", Accepted for publication, Chemosphere, 2005.
  • Xue, S., Tanner, R.I., Barton, G.W., Lwin, R., Large, M.C.J. and Poladian, L., "Fabrication of microstructured optical fibres - Part I: Problem formulation and numerical modelling of transient draw process", Accepted for publication, Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2005.
  • Xue, S., Tanner, R.I., Barton, G.W., Lwin, R., Large, M.C.J. and Poladian, L., "Fabrication of microstructured optical fibres - Part II: Numerical modelling of steady-state draw process", Accepted for publication, Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2005.