2018 Environmental Division Graduate Student Award Winner Announced

Environmental Division Graduate Student Award Winner, 2018 - Mohammad Saiful Islam

Mohammad Saiful Islam is a Chemical Engineering PhD student at the University of Kentucky. His current Ph.D. work deals with achieving an optimization condition for making pH responsive membranes for dechlorination of environmental toxic pollutants from water, such as, PCB and TCE. Another avenue of his research focuses on capturing toxic metals (such as, Hg) from refinery wastewater for environmental and water remediation applications. He has presented his work several times in conferences such as AIChE and NAMS. In addition to his own research, he mentors undergraduate students in his research group and in the university's summer Chemical Engineering NSF/REU program alongside serving as the secretary for Materials and Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association. 

He was nominated for his 2018 publication in the Journal of Membrane Science with the title: “Role of membrane pore polymerization conditions for pH responsive behavior, catalytic metal nanoparticle synthesis, and PCB degradation" as the primary and first author [DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2018.03.060.] The research paper details advances in the area of controlled nanostructured metal synthesis in pores of microfiltration type membranes and addresses reactivity control for toxic pollutant degradation under ambient condition. The immobilized Pd-Fe nanoparticles in membranes showed complete reductive dehalogenation of pentachlorobiphenyl. The integration of nanotechnology with membranes allows no loss of nanoparticles, and brings in immense benefit in the environmental field with applications ranging from water detoxification to environmental catalysis near ambient conditions.