Contact Professor Ewan McAdam

Areas of expertise

  • Water Science and Engineering

Background

Ewan spent the early part of his career working in industry as an analytical chemist for an executive agency of DEFRA, and a global pharmaceutical manufacturer before taking a consultancy role serving clients across the fine chemical, pharmaceutical and manufacturing sectors. Following a return to study, he received his doctorate on membrane technology in 2008 at Cranfield, where he continues to work on the development of novel membrane processes for the water sector, that foster new opportunities in energy management, process intensification and resource recovery.

Current activities


Professor McAdam’s research focusses on the development of hybrid membrane technologies for the water sector that permit selective separations, chemical and biochemical transformations, gas-liquid transfer or the initiation of a phase change, to enable opportunities in process intensification, energy production or resource recovery to be realised. He has secured over £10Mn of research income from research councils, an international network of industrial clients and NGOs.

His present research portfolio includes acting as scientific lead to the ‘Nanomembrane Toilet’ funded through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which received the 2018 Innovation Award from the International Water Association (IWA). He also presently holds a prestigious five-year European Research Council Fellowship, focussed on membrane assisted crystallisation. For this research, he was awarded the 2017 Emerging Technologies prize, a European innovation competition conferred by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Prof. McAdam is principal investigator on six patented membrane technologies, and has collectively published over 140 peer reviewed journal and conference papers together with contributing to five key published texts on membrane technology. Ewan is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Water and Environment Journal, a peer reviewed journal internationally distributed through Wiley.











Clients

  • Anglian Water
  • Northumbrian Water
  • Severn Trent Water
  • Sydney Water
  • Thames Water
  • Yorkshire Water
  • Alpheus Environmental
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • Carbon Trust
  • EPSRC
  • Halcrow Group
  • Infinis
  • Kemira Chemicals

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

  • Adams RJ, Barrington D, Collins M, Hutchings P, Ihasz O, Kolios A, McAdam E, Moreno M, Parker A, Tyrrel S, Vyakarnam, S & Williams L. (2018) A scoping review of business model configurations for diffusing high-tech innovations at the bottom of the pyramid. In: British Academy of Management (BAM) Annual Conference 2018, University of the West of England, 4-6 September 2018.
  • Anastasopoulou A, Kolios A, Somorin T, Sowale A, Jiang Y, Fidalgo B, Parker A, Williams L, Collins M, McAdam EJ & Tyrrel S (2018) Probabilistic life cycle assessment of the nano membrane toilet. In: ICWERS 2018: 20th International Conference on Waste-to-Energy Technologies and Sustainability, Rome, 5-6 March 2018.