Professor Macchi completed both his BEng and MASc at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, after which he attended the University of British Columbia for his PhD. During his graduate studies he worked on a variety of fundamental and applied multiphase reaction engineering projects, such as the drying and granulation of sludge and slurries in a spouted bed with Gaz Métro, the hydrodynamic scaling of a high-pressure foaming three-phase fluidized bed hydroprocessor (LC-FinerSM) with Syncrude Canada Ltd., and a kinetic study of vanadium phosphorus oxide catalyst employed in the partial oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride with E.I. du Pont de Nemours.
Present research interests continue to be in multiphase reaction engineering with emphasis on fluidized beds: transport phenomena in high pressure multiphase reactors, including micro-channels; the synthesis of gas hydrates in a slurry bubble column; and capture of CO2 from the flue gas of a combustor/gasifier via a dual fluidized bed system using limestone. Collaborations have been established with CanmetEnergy-Ottawa, NRC-ICPET, McGill University, Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Lonza Inc.