(6cd) Sustainable Alternatives for Chemical Processing

My research focus is on reducing the environmental impact of chemical processing through the development of sustainable chemical processes that are both economically competitive and environmentally responsible. This will involve developing techniques involving novel solvents, such as ionic liquids, supercritical fluids, and aqueous systems that combine reaction efficiency and novel separations techniques to improve catalytic efficiency and facilitate product purification. The combination of research in the areas of thermodynamics, tunable solvents, green chemistry and homogenous organometallic and enzymatic catalyst recovery presents unique opportunities to integrate these concepts into the development of sustainable processes. The successful development of these processes will have major impact on the synthesis of pharmaceutical compounds and the production of commodity chemicals and biofuels from renewable resources. The use of new sustainable technologies to achieve these goals is a major part of the future of the chemical industry.