ChEnected is introducing readers to the recipients of AIChE’s 2024 Institute and Board of Directors’ Awards. These high honorees are nominated by the chemical engineering community and voted upon by the members of AIChE’s Awards Committee.
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 2024 Industrial Gases Award is being presented to Dr. Krista S. Walton, Professor and Robert “Bud” Moeller Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is being honored “for groundbreaking research on the understanding and control of hydrolytic and chemical stability of metal-organic frameworks, and for its transformative impact on industrial gas.”
Dr. Walton and the other Institute and Board of Directors’ Award honorees will receive their prizes at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, October 27–31 in San Diego, California.
I am incredibly proud of the contributions my group has made. Guiding them, collaborating with them, and learning from them has been the most rewarding aspect of my career.
Krista Walton and her team
At Georgia Tech, Krista Walton leads a research program dedicated to the design, synthesis, and characterization of stable porous materials for adsorption applications, including CO2 capture, atmospheric water extraction, and air purification.
More than a decade ago, she became one of the few researchers to focus on understanding the chemical stability of metal-organic frameworks. In 2014, she led the founding of Georgia Tech’s U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Frontier Research Center, which focuses on acid gas stability of sorbents in energy applications. Recently, Walton co-chaired a DOE roundtable on foundational science for carbon dioxide removal technologies.
She has documented her research in more than 140 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and has given dozens of invited lectures, keynotes, and seminars. Also, over her two decades participating in AIChE activities, she has served as a director of the Separations Division and has chaired that Division’s programming devoted to adsorption and ion exchange.
Since joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 2006, Dr. Walton has mentored more than 80 researchers, including 26 PhD graduates.
“My first two PhD students were tasked with synthesizing and characterizing our first metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for adsorption testing,” recalls Walton. “However, we encountered repeated issues with stability of the structures in ambient humidity.” Walton explains that water stability of MOFs was not a popular research topic at the time, and that relatively little had been published about it. Because stability was crucial to developing such materials for adsorption applications, “we decided to add a small project to our work, hoping to uncover materials design criteria to create stable structures,” says Walton. “What started out as an interesting side project became a core focus of my research group over the past 18 years, and helped spur an entire research area in the adsorption community.”
Reflecting on her career to date, Walton adds, “I am incredibly proud of the contributions my group has made to understanding the stability of MOFs — and of our collective impact on the scientific community. Each person brought their own unique talents and perspectives to the lab. Guiding them, collaborating with them, and learning from them has been the most rewarding aspect of my career.”
This fall, ChEnected is presenting profiles of all the 2024 Institute and Board of Directors’ Award recipients. Visit ChEnected regularly to meet the honorees.