Prof. Kirti Yenkie's Talk

Start
Jan 10, 2020 - 16:00
End
Jan 10, 2020 - 17:00
Venue
Room 237(Old 240), Chemical Engg Dept
Event Type
Speaker
Prof. Kirti Yenkie, Rowan University
Title
Systematizing Solvent Recovery in chemical industries by applying Process Systems Engineering (PSE) principles

Abstract:
With the rapid expansion of the chemical market over the next decade,the concerns for environmental sustainability have increased due to excessive disposal of chemical solvents. Chemical solvents are typically used as extraction, cleaning, and purification agents and account for up to 90% of the process by mass. To date, there is no proper mitigation plan to handle the inevitable rise in waste volume. These solvent wastes are typically incinerated or released after a single use. However, incineration and direct release are not green methods because of the potential detrimental effects to the environment.In my talk, I will present our integrated approach that employs the Process Systems Engineering (PSE) principles for the development of a systematic solvent recovery framework to handle wastes from solvent consuming industries. This framework considers multiple alternative recovery and purification options simultaneously to recover solvents through a superstructure-based optimization approach. The technologies are represented as mathematical models, which include material and energy balances, utility requirements, design, and industrial constraints. The recovery of solvents from multi-component waste streams are modeled as mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems. The results from our work suggest that selecting solvent recovery options require lower costs in comparison to typical incineration and reduce the emission of harmful substances into the environment. In addition to this, I will also provide a brief overview of the other ongoing projects in our Sustainable Design & Systems Medicine Lab at Rowan University.

Bio:
Prof. Yenkie completed her B Tech from LIT Nagpur and M Tech from IIT Bombay, both in Chemical Engineering. She went on to pursue her PhD in Bioengineering from University of Illinois at Chicago. Subsequently, she completed two post-doctoral assignments, one at UW Madison and the other at Delaware.Dr. Kirti Yenkie’s research focuses on leveraging Process Systems Engineering (PSE) principles in the areas of environmental sustainability and healthcare. Her multidisciplinary work involves methods from mathematical modeling, simulation, programming, data analytics, optimization, control, uncertainty analysis and stochastic processes.

She would also be interested in sharing her post-PhD and early faculty-career experience at Rowan Univ., USA. So it would be useful for senior PhD students to attend the talk to get her experience and
perspective.