Taylor Sulmonetti

Dr. Sulmonetti is a chemical engineer whose areas of expertise include reaction and chemical process engineering, heterogeneous catalysis, environmental catalysis, biomass processing, materials characterization, and various spectroscopic techniques. His research interests include catalysis and catalytic processes, industrial chemical processes, process safety, fires and explosions, alternative energy processes, and biorenewable products. Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Sulmonetti earned his Ph.D. at Georgia Institute of Technology. As a Graduate Research Assistant at Georgia Tech, he synthesized, characterized, and analyzed non-precious, multi-metal catalysts utilized in the conversion of key biomass platform molecules into renewable fuel additives and plastic precursors. He gained extensive experience in reaction engineering including designing and testing lab-scale batch reactors and vapor phase flow reactors, along with product analysis through gas chromatography (GC). Additionally, he has significant experience with material characterization techniques including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Prior to his graduate studies, Dr. Sulmonetti held an internship in the beverage industry for the Coca-Cola Company conducting failure analysis and environmental life cycle testing of fountain drink syrup pumps. He also held an internship at NASA’s Langley Research Center where he synthesized and characterized poly(imide-siloxane)s for high temperature applications.