Chemical engineering as a distinct discipline, now more than a century old, has evolved from industrial chemistry and empiricism into a mature field that combines the understanding and predictive capabilities of fundamental physical sciences with the final goal of design and control of industrial scale applications. Research in Chemical Engineering Sciences in the Department covers most of the classical topics, such as thermodynamics, reaction engineering and catalysis, transport phenomena, separation processes and colloidal and interfacial phenomena, often with a modern twist. Many of the activities in Chemical Engineering Sciences also provide the foundation for other thrusts described here. The Department interacts closely, through research activities and faculty joint appointments, with the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Science (a national Research Institute) funded by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) of Singapore.

Examples of activities in this Thrust include, but are not limited to,

• Thermodynamics of submicroscopic systems and macromolecular solutions (e.g., folding and conformation of polymeric and protein structures)

• Heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis and ab initio mechanistic studies; Photocatalysis for environmental pollution control; Asymmetric reactions for fine chemicals & pharmaceuticals; Chemometrics

• Computational fluids dynamics; crystallization kinetics; dynamics of complex fluids

• Asymmetric and composite membranes for gas separation; liquid membranes for metal extraction and bioproduct recovery; Novel biomimetic membranes; Adsorptive separations

• Self-assembly and surfactant solutions; Electrokinetics; Electrophoretic separation of proteins

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