NJIT membrane separation technologies expert to receive upcoming top honor

Kamalesh Sirkar, PhD, distinguished professor of chemical engineering at NJIT, and internationally-renowned expert in membrane separation technologies will be the recipient of the NJIT Board of Overseers Excellence in Research Prize and Medal. The award presentation and lecture will take place Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009, in Kupfrian Hall on the NJIT campus. A reception will immediately follow. For more information, please visit http://www.njit.edu/about/boards/overseers/awards/prize-medal/index.php

This past year, Sirkar was named a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also received last fall the Clarence G. Gerhold Award from the separations division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The Gerhold Award recognized his extensive contributions to chemical separation technology. In honor of the award, two special sessions sponsored by AIChE were held. The sessions gave colleagues from around the world the chance to present lectures about their own work which Sirkar had influenced.

Sirkar, who is also the foundation professor in membrane separations at NJIT, is best known among colleagues as the inventor of the commercialized membrane-based solvent extraction technology. The former Hoechst Celanese Inc. received honorable mention in the Kirkpatrick Award for this work in 1991. Sirkar usually works with miniscule membranes, whose openings are often smaller in size than nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.

"The basic principles of membrane separation have been known for a long time," said Sirkar. "Intestines in animals and humans are semi-permeable membranes. Early experiments to study the process of separation were performed by chemists using samples of animal membranes."

Today, membrane separation processes depend on the design of the membrane and the membrane module. The size of the membrane pores is often the key to determining which molecular components in either a liquid or gas form will pass through the membrane. Typically molecules flow from a region of high to low concentration.

Pressure or concentration differences on both sides of the membrane cause the actual separation to occur. Membrane separation processes are used in biomedical and biotechnology processes, by the chemical, food, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries and in water treatments to separate, purify or concentrate liquid solutions, cellular suspensions or gaseous mixtures.