Supercritical water or CO2 has been used to pretreat biomass or extract valuable chemicals from it. The work involved in this SLP is to collect literature on the research done in this area, study the research papers in detail, and summarize them in a report.

Enzymatic cascades are conserved set of biochemical reactions, ubiquitously found in many systems. The goal of this project is to develop a suitable machine learning model to predict the reaction structure and kinetics of an enzymatic cascade. The project will involve use of systematic kinetic model simulations of a repertoire of cascades in the context of machine learning models. Candidate is expected to have a strong interest in reaction engineering and have basic training in python programming.

The goal is to develop a general lattice Boltzmann model for high (~10^{-3}) Knudsen numbers flow in porous media. The challenges involve maintaining numerical stability at high Knudsen numbers in complex geometries. Focus will be on specular boundary conditions. The project will involve building and testing a mathematical model with C++/Python code. 

This project will exclusively use dynamic models identified using data for MPC of the underlying process. The data based models will be either directly identified as state space models or state space models realized from input-output models. We will start with toy examples to understand the pipeline but eventually apply it to a process of industrial scale. 

Dealloyed gold nanoparticles can be synthesized by selectively dissolving Ag from gold-silver alloy nanoparticles through the well-known process of dealloying. These nanoparticles exhibit remarkable catalytic activity towards the CO oxidation reaction owing to their large specific surface area, presence of rough surfaces that contain a high density of catalytically-active sites, and synergistic effects arising from the residual Ag leftover from the dealloying process.

Microkinetic modeling is powerful tool in heterogeneous catalysis, as it quantitatively merges fundamental surface chemistry principles with experimental data, avoiding the need for prior assumptions about rate-determining steps (RDS), quasi-equilibrated steps, or most abundant reaction intermediates (MARI). This project focuses on modeling of green, heterogeneously catalyzed reactions that generate H2 and syngas (H2 + CO), such as dry reforming of methane (DRM).

Utilization of CO2 as a renewable feedstock to produce fuels/chemicals is a potential way to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change. However, CO2 conversion technologies are still at a nascent stage and are limited by several technical challenges. Development of active, selective, and stable heterogeneous catalysts is key to the development of such technologies. This project will focus on the synthesis of tailor-made catalysts for the catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into value-added chemicals or syngas or solid carbon with/without light irradiation.

Utilization of CO2 as a renewable feedstock to produce fuels/chemicals is a potential way to mitigate the effects of anthropogenic climate change. However, CO2 conversion technologies are still at a nascent stage and are limited by several technical challenges. Development of active, selective, and stable heterogeneous catalysts is key to the development of such technologies. This project will focus on the synthesis of tailor-made catalysts for the catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into value-added chemicals or syngas or solid carbon with/without light irradiation.

In this project, the aim is to model deformation of synthetic biomimetic hydrogels – in the presence of loaded with animal cells. The hydrogel acts as an extracellular matrix. computational and theoretical analyses of the molecular deformation of polymer networks in the presence of solvent. The required background is Basic ChE or similar background sound college level Mathematics, with a good understanding in Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics. Background in Polymers would be good, but is not required.

(Theoretical and Computational)

In this project, the aim is to understand quantitatively the molecular elasticity of biopolymers with potential engineering applications. The first example is Spider Dragline Silk, which may be several times stronger than steel (after normalizing the density). The work involves computational and theoretical analyses of the molecular structure of the biopolymer system. The work involves some coding, but is mostly theory development.