P.C. Rossin College of
Engineering and Applied Science
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Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Time: 11:00AM - 12:15PM

Location: Virtual Webinar hosted by AIChE

This event is the John Chen Distinguished Lecture, featuring Sankaran Sundaresan, Norman John Sollenberger Professor of Engineering and Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Princeton University, who will talk about “Particle transport problems at different scales: From dry powder inhalation to flows in circulating fluidized beds”, as part of the Lehigh University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering's Spring 2022 Seminar Series.  

Abstract

Flows of particulate material mediated by interstitial gas flow arise in nature and in many processes. They manifest inhomogeneities that can be traced to hydrodynamic instabilities and interparticle forces that arise through contact, van der Waals, electrostatic interactions, and capillary and viscous forces associated with liquid bridges between particles. This presentation will touch upon a few examples and highlight the essential physics behind these complexities. In the first example dealing with dry powder inhalation, simulations shed light on the fluidization of carrier particles decorated with active pharmaceutical ingredient (api) particles, the subsequent release of the api particles, and their transport through the mouth-throat region. In the second example dealing with the contact charging of particles in fluidized systems, I will first discuss the effect of the dielectric breakdown of the gas on the extent of contact charging in vibrated beds. I will then illustrate how electrostatic charges on the particles can lead to non-uniform flow behavior. The third example deals with the experimental observation of loop instability in circulating fluidized beds and complementary analysis exposing the role of wall friction in standpipes in suppressing this instability.

About the Speaker

Sankaran Sundaresan received his B. Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1976. After receiving his Ph.D. in the same field in 1980 from the University of Houston, he joined the faculty at Princeton University, where he is now the Norman John Sollenberger Professor of Engineering. He served as The Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science during 1997 – 2003.

Over the years, his multiphase flow research group at Princeton has studied the origin of hydrodynamic instabilities and the hierarchy of nonuniform structures that arise in granular flows, gas-liquid flows in trickle bed reactors, fluid-particles flows, and gas-liquid bubble column reactors.  His research group has also studied problems dealing with catalyst dynamics, chemical reactor dynamics, environmentally benign catalysis, plasma-assisted catalytic reactor analysis, and desalination. His current research is focused on the effect of interparticle forces on fluid-particle flows and plasma-assisted catalytic reactor analysis.  
 
He served as an Associate Editor of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering Journal and several editorial boards. He has been recognized with several awards and honors, including the Richard Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering and the Thomas Baron Award in Fluid Particle Systems from the AICHE,  President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and Graduate Mentoring Award from Princeton University, The Alexander von Humboldt Research Award, and visiting appointments as Moore Distinguished Scholar at California Institute of Technology, JM Burgers Visiting Professor of Fluid Mechanics at TU Delft and Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras. He has delivered several named lectures, including the Neal Amundson Lecture at the University of Houston, named after his Ph.D. advisor.   
 
Exelus, Inc., with whom he has been associated for nearly two decades, has developed technologies for solid acid-catalyzed alkylation and propane dehydrogenation, licensed exclusively by KBR as K-SAAT and K-PRO processes.
Department/Program: 
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
College of Engineering