Multiscale Reaction Engineering
Research
Research Areas
Our work focuses on the circular economy and derivatization of various feedstocks, including biomass, food waste, other waste streams, and plastics, to produce renewable fuels, chemicals, and green ammonia. It integrates molecular level catalysis, kinetics and reaction mechanisms, catalyst informatics and in silico materials prediction, catalyst active site determination, continuous intensified chemical processing, and chemical process electrification. It provides a symbiosis of experiments, multiscale modeling, and data science as enabling pillars.
Process Intensification, Modular Manufacturing & Electrification
Chemical looping
Microfluidics
Microwave and plasma reactors
Applications to the conversion of biomass, shale gas and other circular economy chemistries
Data Science & Multiscale Models
Data science for spectroscopy, 3D printed materials design, and process design
From density functional theory to molecular dynamics, to kinetic Monte Carlo and computational fluid dynamics of chemical reactors
Atomistic design of catalytic materials
Novel data science method development
Biomass Conversion
Production of renewable lubricants, detergents, adhesives and plastics
Characterization and synthesis of new
catalytic materials
Identification of novel reaction mechanisms
Engineering the active site
Sustainability-driven Chemistry
Municipal waste stream utilization
Food waste valorization
Paper industry waste
Plastics upcycling
Shale Gas & CO2
Alkane dehydrogenation
Methane upgrade to ethylene and aromatics
CO2 conversion to value-added products
Materials Synthesis & Characterization
Operando spectroscopies
Single-atom catalysts
Microporous and mesoporous materials
Catalyst dynamics
Sponsors
Our research has been or is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Army Research Office (ARO), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and several companies. The biomass-related research is supported as part of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001004. This manufacturing work is supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficient and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office through the RAPID manufacturing institute in partnership with the State of Delaware. Financial support from all these sources is much appreciated.