AIChE’s Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology recognizes sustained contributions to the advancement of technology in the production, distribution, and application of industrial gases. The award is sponsored by Linde.
The 2023 Industrial Gases Award is being presented to Dr. Christopher W. Jones, the John F. Brock III School Chair and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is being honored "for the design of adsorptive materials and processes for the capture and purification of gases, including diverse industrial gases and ground-breaking contributions to CO2 capture from air.”
Dr. Jones and the other Institute and Board of Directors’ Award honorees will receive their prizes at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting, November 5–10 in Orlando, Florida.
I am fortunate to live and work in a time when my abilities can be directly applied to a problem of global significance.
About Christopher Jones and his work
At Georgia Tech, Christopher Jones leads a research group that works on materials, catalysis, and adsorption. He is known for his pioneering work on absorbent materials that extract CO2 from ultra-dilute mixtures such as ambient air, which are key components of direct air capture (DAC) technologies. If DAC technologies are coupled with CO2 storage via underground sequestration, DAC becomes a negative emissions technology (NET) for reducing carbon dioxide pollution. In this area, Jones served on the U.S. National Academies Consensus Study on Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration in 2017–2018, focusing on DAC.
In acknowledging the recognition for his work in direct air capture, Jones said, “I am grateful to Georgia Tech and the broader chemical engineering community for the opportunity to do a job I love and to work on important problems.” He added, “I am fortunate to live and work in a time when my abilities can be directly applied to a problem of global significance.”
Reflecting on the work, Jones went on to say, “As we work to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere, chemical engineers will be leading the way. I am indebted to the over 100 students, postdocs, and collaborators with whom I have worked, and I look forward to what the future will hold.”
Jones has also produced an extensive body of work in catalysis. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the journal ACS Catalysis, and is vice president of the North American Catalysis Society. In 2020, he was selected to launch the open access American Chemical Society (ACS) journal, JACS Au (read as “Jack’s Gold”).
Aside from recognition by AIChE — which, in addition to the 2023 Industrial Gases Award, includes the Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress (2016) — Jones’ work in both catalysis and CO2 separation has been honored by organizations including the ACS, the American Society for Engineering Education, and the North American Catalysis Society. Georgia Tech has recognized Jones as the Institute’s Outstanding Faculty Research Author, as well as for Research Program Development and for Research Innovation. In 2022, Jones was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.
This fall, ChEnected is presenting profiles of all the 2023 Institute and Board of Directors’ Award recipients. Visit ChEnected regularly to meet the honorees.