Separations Division Areas

The Separations Division has eight topical areas:

• Distillation and Absorption (Area 2A): The Distillation and Absorption area focuses on fundamentals, processes, equipment, and control. This covers new ideas, improvements to existing applications, integration of distillation with other unit operations, and energy efficiency.  You can learn more about Area 2A here.
• Crystallization and Precipitation (Area 2B): The Crystallization and Precipitation area addresses all aspects of particle formation: from the fundamental mechanisms governing crystallization and precipitation, to their industrial application as separation processes. We welcome both experimental and computational studies that advance the understanding of nucleation and crystal growth, provide new methods to identify and characterize crystalline and amorphous products, or demonstrate practical applications of crystallization and precipitation processes.
• Extraction (Area 2C): The Extraction area focuses on solvent extraction. The need for higher extraction recoveries and selectivities requires understanding of extraction fundamentals along with developments in extraction processes and solvents. In addition to liquid-liquid separations, gas -liquid separations as well as ion and metal extraction are considered.
• Membrane-based Separations (Area 2D): The membrane-based separations area examines all aspects of non-biological membrane separation processes from the molecular to systems scales. The area welcomes studies that: elucidate the thermodynamic, transport, and chemical phenomena underlying the properties and performance of membrane processes; report methods for manufacturing membranes with controlled microstructures and tailored chemical functionality; describe approaches to design and optimize unit operations and integrated systems. Across scales and applications, results of physical experiments, computational simulations, and theoretical studies are welcomed for all vapor and liquid-phase processes.
• Adsorption and Ion Exchange (Area 2E): The Adsorption and Ion Exchange area focuses on different separation processes related to adsorption and ion exchange for gas and liquid separations. This area covers fundamentals related to different new processes and new materials used in these separations. Experimental results, as well as simulations for processes and development of new materials are welcome.  Many of the separations we cover are related to the sustainability of our society such as producing renewable energy sources, carbon capture and storage, decreasing the effect of climate change.
• Fluid-Particle Separations (Area 2F): Particle-fluid separations address all aspects of the separation of particulate matter from fluids, from the nanoscale to the larger micro/millimeter scales. Novel separation processes or improvements to existing ones regarding energy efficiency or separation efficacy are welcome. We are interested in the theoretical and experimental design and optimization of such processes, that range across a wide number of applications in science and engineering. 
• Bioseparations (Area 2G): Bioseparations area explores all aspects of the separation of biological molecules. We are interested in the theoretical and experimental aspects of multiple size scales from individual unit operations to full manufacturing processes. We also explore the thermodynamics, transport phenomena, and kinetics of bioseparation processes. The molecules we study range in size from nucleic acids to proteins to larger macromolecular complexes to cells.
• General Topics and Other Methods (Area 2H)