IACChE's James Y. Oldshue Lecture

Jim Oldshue was an important leader and supporter of the CIIQ/IACChE.  He was President of the AIChE in 1979 and President of the CIIQ/IACChE in 1995.  Jim was a recipient of the prestigious Víctor Márquez award in 1983, which is conferred by the CIIQ/IACChE. Jim was an ambassador of the profession who visited more than 100 countries.  It is envisioned that this lecture provide a global perspective of a specific contingent topic.  The Oldshue Lecture alternates between the AIChE Annual Meetings and the Interamerican Congresses, which take place every two years.

This year's distinguished lecturer is Dr. Arturo J. Hernández-Maldonado, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM). Dr. Hernández-Maldonado will deliver his lecture at the 2020 AIChE Annual Meeting.

Advancements in the Design of Porous Materials for the Adsorption of Contaminants of Emerging Concern from Water

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) entail a variety of compounds, including but not limited to pharmaceutical and personal care products, pesticides, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), and the corresponding secondary metabolites. CECs are the result of both natural processes and terrestrial anthropogenic activities like direct human waste residues, industrial effluents, runoff from agriculture and livestock, and leakage from landfills. In the case of closed volume applications, like those found human space exploration activities, the accumulation of CECs in the absence of appropriate remediation strategies is imminent due to the need for water reclamation. Numerous CECs are deemed toxic, particularly those that are metabolites of source compounds such as medicinal drugs and EDCs. Given that water is already limited for consumption, it is therefore imperative to find remediation solutions to deal with CECs. One alternative is the used of adsorbent materials as part of a string of water treatment processes that include natural attenuation, and conventional and non-conventional treatment methods. However, the effective removal of CECs via adsorption requires materials that exhibit a synergistic combination of specific surface functionalities, textural properties and hydrophobicity. Although high surface area carbon based adsorbents are ubiquitous in water treatment operations everywhere, selectivity toward CECs present in the ppm and sub-ppm range is severely constrained  due to lack of specific surface interactions. Zeolite-like materials and metal organic frameworks (MOFs) on the other hand offer substantial surface designability to achieve significant adsorbate-adsorbent interactions, and yet suffer from significant hydrophilicity and/or stability problems in aqueous solution. In this talk, we will discuss strategies to overcome the aforementioned limitations via the design of nanoporous hierarchical composite adsorbents with surfaces that rely on both specific and non-specific interactions between a targeted CEC and sites based on transition metals, as well as simultaneous size exclusion and kinetic based separation principles. The discussion will also include a presentation of multi-component uptake data to cover aspects related to competitive adsorption as well as opportunities for regeneration strategies. Furthermore, the presentation will make presentation of recent multidisciplinary collaborative efforts to exploit machine learning for the screening of porous materials candidates for purification of reclaimed water in space exploration applications.

The following is a list of past distinguished Jim Oldshue Lecture speakers:

1. Mr. Carlos Cabrera; President & CEO, UOP; AIChE Centennial and XXIII Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering; Philadelphia, PA, USA (2008)
2. Dr. Arthur W. Etchells III, Principal, AWE3 Enterprises; 8th World Congress and XXIV Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering; Montreal, QC, Canada (2009)
3. Dr. Esteban Alberto Brignole; Professor of Chemical Engineering at Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina, and Senior Researcher of the Argentina’s National Research Council of Science and Technology (CONICET); 2010 Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; Salt Lake City, UT, USA (2010)
4. Dr. Eduardo Falabella Sousa-Aguiar; Senior Consultant, Leopoldo Américo Miguêz de Mello R&D Center, Adjunct Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Consultant at the International Centre for Science and High Technology; XXVI Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering; Montevideo, Uruguay (2012)
5. Dr. Carlos R. Apesteguía, Professor, National University of Litoral (UNL), School of Chemical Engineering (FIQ). Member of the CONICET's Research Staff, Institute of Research on Catalysis and Petrochemistry (INCAPE), Santa Fe, Argentina.  2013 Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; San Francisco, CA, USA (2013)
6. Dr. Ignacio Grossmann, Rudolph R. and Florence Dean University Professor, Carnegie Mellon University; XXVII Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering; Cartagena, Colombia (2014)
7. Dr. John R. Grace, Emeritus Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia; 2015 Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; Salt Lake City, UT, USA (2015)
8. Dr. Axel Meisen, C.M., Ph.D., P.Eng, EurIng., FCAE, FCIC, FIEI, Emeritus Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; XXVIII Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering; Cuzco, Perú (2016)
9. Dr. José Roberto Nunhez ,Professor of Chemical Engineering, Head of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil); 2017 Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; Minneapolis, MN, USA (2017)
10. Dr. Rubens Maciel Filho, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Department of Chemical Process and coordinator of the Laboratory of Optimization, Design and Advanced Process Control (LOPCA), State University of Campinas-UNICAMP; XXIX Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering Incorporating the 68th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference;  Toronto, ON, Canada (2018)
11. Dr. Carlos Rinaldi, Chair and Professor, University of Florida; 2019 AIChE Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; Orlando, FL, USA (2019)

Upcoming Lectures

1. 2020 Annual Meeting, American Institute of Chemical Engineers; San Francisco, CA, USA (2020)
2. 11^th World Congress of Chemical Engineering, XXX Interamerican Congress of Chemical Engineering, and X Congreso Argentino de Ingenería Química, Buenso Aires, Argentina, (2021)