General Research Program

IFPRI funds pre-competitive research in all aspects of particle technology.  The work is typically conducted by academic researchers and their (post)graduate students.   IFPRI provides the funding in the form of research grants and retains no intellectual property from the research.  We encourage our academic research partners to publish their work in the open literature, however we request that they delay publication for a short period (typically six months) to provide IFPRI members a first look at the results of the projects that their membership dues support.

The IFPRI technical program covers all aspects of particle technology.  There is no restriction with respect to materials, phenomena, or processes.  The topics are selected by the members and reflect their companies’ technical interests.  Because projects are selected by majority vote and must be pre-competitive, their focus is on fundamental engineering science rather than specific industrial application.  While “fine particle” is in our name, our research program has included particles ranging from raw ore to colloids.

We categorize the elements of our technical program into the six program areas:

The top corners, wet and dry systems, focus on the physical and chemical behavior of particulate systems.  The bottom corners, particle formation and size reduction, focus on the processing of particles.  In the middle are areas that support the corners: characterization and systems engineering (which includes multi-scale modeling, process control, and process integration).  We have found this categorization scheme useful in assuring that our technical program is balanced, and it allows us to track how our technical program evolves over time.

(C, characterization; SR, size reduction; F, formation; D, dry systems; W, wet systems; SE, systems engineering, W, workshop)

 The technical program is comprised of four components:

• Research projects: 3-year research projects conducted by doctoral or post-doctoral students.  These projects can be renewed for an additional 3-year period; however, renewal is competitive and not automatic.
• Collaborations: 1-year seed funding for facilitating a collaboration between academic researchers to strengthen or expand ongoing research projects. 
• Commissioned reviews: comprehensive, critical literature reviews of specific topics in particle technology.  The objective of these reviews can be to describe the current state of understanding of a scientific area or application to our members.  Often reviews are used to guide the future direction of IFPRI’s technical program.
• Workshops: 2-day intensive discussion of research areas in particle technology of topical interest to industrial and academic researchers with the objective to identify the state of understanding and develop a strategy for moving the topic forward.  Attendance is by invitation only, and participants are balanced equally between academics and industrial practitioners.