Mukesh Upadhyay is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Bernal Institute, University of Limerick, working in the Multiphase Reactor and Intensification Group (mRING). He obtained his PhD in Advanced Energy & Technology from the University of Science & Technology (UST), Republic of Korea. His doctoral research, conducted at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), focused on investigating the hydrodynamics of a Dual Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) Reactor to develop the next-generation integrated upgrading process for extra-heavy oil.
Between 2015 and 2018, he received the BK21 Postdoctoral Fellowship from Yonsei University to study CFB gas-solid flow hydrodynamics under air and oxy fluidizing conditions. During this time, he developed a multiphase particle-in-cell (MP-PIC) based computational particle fluid dynamics (CPFD) model and a CFD model to simulate fast pyrolysis of biomass, identifying optimum operating conditions and reactor geometric configurations.
Subsequently, he joined HANP Inc to work on the development of the company's forward-looking business (fuel cells) and process optimization of the optical photoconductor drum dip-coating process. In 2019, he joined the Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST) as a senior researcher and collaborated with Elchemtech Co. Ltd. on the design and optimization of a 1kW circular PEM water electrolyzer. He also developed a Machine Learning-based hybrid modeling approach to generate reliable predictions of flow hydrodynamics.
As a researcher, Mukesh develops Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to address technical barriers to the advancement of next-generation technologies. His knowledge and exposure areas involve multi-physics flow. His current research focuses on the process development of dense liquid-liquid emulsion production using hydrodynamic cavitation devices, with soft sensors for online estimation of Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs) of emulsions.