RTI International
Research Chemical Engineer
RTI International, Center for Energy Technology
- Worked as Lead Research Engineer on a variety of commercial and government-funded projects in the areas of carbon capture, biofuels, advanced gasification and syngas utilization
- Experienced in executing projects at different stages of development from proof-of-concept to technology demonstration
- Participated in brainstorming research ideas, generating proof-of-concept data and packaging them as proposals
- Developed catalysts and sorbents used in packed and fluidized bed reactors for various applications
- Designed, installed and operated various lab-scale high temperature, high pressure packed and fluidized bed reactor systems for material testing and process development
- Led the design, evaluation, construction, FAT, shake-down and testing of pilot-scale demonstration unit
- Experienced in design and operation of fluidized bed reactors and solids handling systems
- Worked as a Process Engineer to develop processes and perform technoeconomic and proforma analysis of various technologies
- Experience in collaborating with outside organizations on various projects
- Responsible for writing quarterly, biweekly progress reports, final reports and making presentations on projects and research ideas to clients, future collaborators and at national conferences
Research Assistant
University of Toledo
- Worked in collaboration with Catacel Corporation, Garrettsville, OHIO
- Studied reforming of natural gas, ethanol, diesel, JP8, kerosene and heavy-fuel surrogates for the production of hydrogen
- Designed and installed high pressure and high temperature reactor systems to enable screening reforming catalysts and generate data for the estimation of detailed kinetic
- Prepared catalysts using wet impregnation, co-precipitation and sol-gel technique
- Developed sulfur tolerant catalyst for steam reforming and combustion of sulfur containing logistic fuels (diesel and jet fuel)
- Worked with Catacel Corporation to incorporate the developed sulfur-tolerant catalyst in their patented flexible fuel reformer to build and test a pilot scale fuel reformer prototype
- Performed post-reaction catalyst characterization using BET, TPR, TPO, Chemisorption, XRD, TEM, XPS to understand the effect of reaction conditions on catalyst deactivation
- Performed kinetic analysis and determined reaction mechanism of heavy fuel reforming incorporating catalyst deactivation by implementing C and Fortran programs and MATLAB optimization routines
- Installation, operation and troubleshooting of analytical instruments (GC, MS, GC-MS, Micromeritics)
- Prepared technical reports and visual data presentations to communicate results in monthly and quarterly reports