Umberto Arena’s research activity was mainly oriented to several, fundamental and applied, aspects of fluidized bed technology. The current research programs focus on the study of thermal treatments of different wastes by means of fluidized bed reactors. The study has also been extended to determine the technological, economical and environmental aspects of the different routes (mechanical recycling, feedstock recycling and energy recovery) by which it is possible to manage plastic wastes and to develop a Life Cycle Assessment of the different management options.

Umberto Arena is full professor of "Industrial Pollution Control Engineering" at the Second University of Naples (Faculty of Environmental Sciences). He taught in the past at the Turin Politecnico, at the University of Perugia and at the University "Federico II" of Naples (Faculty of Engineering). He graduated from the University "Federico II" of Naples where obtained the Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1987.
He is the vice-Director of the Centre of Competence "Analysis and Monitoring of Environmental Risk", created by Regione Campania since September 2002. Since 2005 is a Member of the board of Directors f AMRA-Analysis and Monitoring of Environmental Risk s.c. a r.l., a public company having as members the five Univerities of Campania Region together with INGV and CNR.
He is a member of a number of international committees like: The Combustion Institute, being one of the three delegates of the Italian Section of the Institute (since 1981); the International Advisory Board of the International Conference on Circulating Fluidized Beds (since 1993); the International Scientific Committee of the Engineering Foundation on Fluidization (since 1994).
He is a referee of international scientific journals like Waste Management, Powder Technology, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineers, Combustion Science and Technology, Chemical Engineering Sciences, Fuel, Polymer Degradation & Stability, The Chemical Engineer Journal, Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries.
He is also a member of a number of national committees and scientific responsible of research programs with several companies and research centres. In particular, he worked (or still works) with ENEL, ENI (Snamprogetti, Enitecnologie, Agip Carbone, Enichem Anic), CONAI (the National Consortium for Packaging), Co.Re.Pla. (the National Consortium for Plastic Packaging Collection and Treatment), ENEA-Environmental Department, Sagit-UNILEVER, Ansaldo Energia, Asia.biz.
He also cooperates with the National Committee for Waste Emergency in Campania. In this role, he prepared the engineering section of the “Plan for Waste Disposal in the Campania Region” (July 1997), he was a member of the committee for the award of incinerators for municipal solid wastes in Campania (December 1998) and he recently developed (December 2002) the Life Cycle Analysis of solid waste management options. He is also a member of the Scientific Committee for the evaluation of Environmental Risk in the Campania Region. He is also a member of the scientific committee of COMIECO, the Italian consortium for paper and paperboard recycling.
He co-operated in several international research programs (Technical University of Vienna-Austria; Technical University of Hamburg Harburg – Germany; Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MASS, USA; Technical University of Halifax, Canada; Centre for Renewable Energies, Athens – Greece; Ciemat, Spain; Centre for Environmental Strategies , Guildford - UK).

He is author of more than 60 scientific papers published in international scientific journals (AIChE Journal, Chemical Engineering Science, Chemical Engineering Journal, Waste Management, Ind.&Eng.Chem.Res., J. of Industrial Ecology, Polymer Degradation & Stability, Powder Technology, Fuel, Combustion Science and Technology, Combustion and Flame, Canadian J. of Chemical Engineers, Japanese J. of Chemical Engineering, Int. J. of Life Cycle Assessment, J. of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries). He also wrote the chapters “Gas Mixing” in the multi-authored book “Circulanting Fluidized Beds that Chapman & Hall published in 1997 and "Fluidized Bed Pyrolysis of Plastic Wastes" in the multi-authored book "Feedstock Recycling and Pyrolysis of Waste Plastics", that J. Wiley&Sons published in 2006.