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Q&A: Ludovic Lemaignen
Posted on Feb 01 2009
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You trained in France as a chemist. What made you decide to come and study in the UK?

It was really the opportunity. I was doing a degree in France which was similar to an MSc in Chemical Engineering. My boss over there had good contacts with a professor at Imperial College and this professor was looking for PhD students in coal science and, well, I applied and got accepted. I had no real plan.

So what was your focus whilst in academic research?

I’ve researched various topics. During my MSc, I spent six months in the lab developing a new analysis technique. I was working for Michelin in France, trying to characterise carbon black using a chromatographic technique. Carbon black is the thing that makes the tyre black, but it also makes the rubber much stronger. It’s the compound that makes tyres go thousands of miles without bursting or shredding apart.

In my PhD I was trying to characterise coal. The overall aim of the project was to increase the output of coal burning power stations. And after that I did a couple of postdocs in catalysis for the chemical and petroleum industry.

What made you decide to give up your research career for HSE?

Well, one of my friends had an accident – he was doing research and all of his friends were quite upset about what happened. So that made me have a look at what the law was saying and what I was supposed to do as a student or a researcher. Basically you have a COSHH form to fill in once a year. And I thought, that’s all well and good, but on a day-to-day basis what are we supposed to do to minimise risk? So that was my first real contact with HSE.

At ASK you work on a wide variety of projects. Could give us a flavour of what you’ve been involved in and what your particular areas of expertise are?

I’ve been involved in quite a variety of projects, yes, some of them quite well known. I’m thinking of the Buncefield Incident, where ASK has been employed by the site holder to contribute to its in-house investigation. That was really high profile.

That’s still ongoing, isn’t it? Can you tell us anything about your findings or is it all very hush hush?

The criminal trial should be soon, so I’m afraid I can’t really say much about it. We have a confidentiality agreement so I don’t want to be in trouble with that. But we tried to find the reason why the explosion happened and the magnitude of the explosion.

What other sort of work do you get involved in?

I tend to do modelling of air emissions and pollution. One of them, which I can’t resist talking about because I really like it, was involving a small company which was operating from a quite large building with quite a lot of emissions – chimneys and so on. They wanted to know what their emissions were and more importantly what was the pollution at ground level. So the normal way to do that is to build a huge scaffolding and to measure emissions and fallout from the chimney. But the company couldn’t really afford that, so we came up with the solution of doing modelling based on known emission factors from each chimney. We made a map of concentration at ground level and wrote a report based on this modelling and the maps we produced. And the local authority were quite happy with that and the company were allowed to carry on business.

How much does your research background relate to what you’re doing now as a consultant? Are you constantly having to learn new things?

My research in coal science – my PhD – is quite useful for the projects dealing with emissions from fire and these kinds of things. But I also really enjoy learning quite a lot, because we’re working on lots of projects, from all kind of industries and companies, so each new project is really an opportunity to learn something more. And I learned quite a lot actually from the legal point of view and the technical point of view.

Working in this kind of job, you must end up into situations that could be perceived as a little bit risky. So do you ever find yourself thinking of your own health and safety?

I don’t really go to places where I am in great danger. Although recently I’ve been to a plant which is treating industrial waste - that was probably the most dangerous place I’ve ever been. The main danger was a truck reversing without the driver checking who was behind. Apparently that’s quite a common accident – a forklift truck reversing without looking when somebody is in the way.

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Last changed: Feb 01 2009 at 4:47 PM