Novel Catalytic and Separation Processes Based on Ionic Liquids

Dr. Dickson Ozokwelu has 40+ years of diversified chemical engineering and management experience, spread evenly between entrepreneurship, government, industry and academia, including 16 years at US Department of Energy. Currently, he is Lead Technology Manager for the Chemicals' portfolio at the United States Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. In this position, Dr. Ozokwelu plays significant roles in reshaping the US government's energy policy, as well as developing and deploying energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies in key manufacturing industries in the United States, including Chemicals, Petroleum Refining and Pulp and Paper Industries. Dr. Ozokwelu was an invited author and online editor for Toluene Manufacturing Technology and Economics in the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. In the last 12 years at US DOE, Dr. Ozokwelu championed the focusing of R&D on ionic liquids by funding and managing several R&D projects in ionic liquids as part of the Chemicals portfolio. Subsequently, he pioneered the inclusion of Ionic Liquids into Topical Conference series at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, AIChE Annual Meetings Program. Dr. Ozokwelu's expertise is in process design, process economics and process synthesis, separation technologies, energy efficiency and renewable energy. In a total of more than 10 years prior to US DOE, Dr. Ozokwelu held several technical and managerial positions in the US chemical industry. He was Engineering Associate (2nd highest rank in technical ladder) at BP North America, formerly BP-Amoco and Senior Research Chemical Engineer at Eastman Chemicals Company. He is widely recognized (US and abroad) as an expert in separations technology and won the OIT-DOE First Technology Vision 2020 Award for the Chemical Industry in Separations. Prior to US industrial experience, Dr. Ozokwelu has more than 10 years of university teaching and accomplishments. Dr. Ozokwelu is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He received PhD and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1981 and 1978 respectively; a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of Ife, Nigeria in 1975 and an MBA in Planning and Management from The University of Memphis in 1984. To date, Dr. Ozokwelu has been a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the State of Tennessee, USA, since 1984.Prof. Suojiang Zhang is Professor & Director General of Institute of Process Engineering (IPE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Member of CAS, Director of Beijing Key Laboratory of Ionic Liquids Clean Process, and Director of Professional Committee of Chinese Chemical Society Ionic Liquids and Green Engineering. His main research interests are ionic liquids and green process engineering, including molecular simulations, properties, preparation, and applications of ionic liquids for catalysis. Several green processes based on ionic liquids have been developed, such as a large-scale preparation process of ionic liquids, an innovative cleaner process of methyl methacrylate, a new process for the synthesis of ethylene glycol via hydrolysis or alcoholysis of ethylene carbonate, a new process for carbon dioxide capture, polyethylene terephthalate degradation, a novel method for production of biogasoline from biomass, and a new electrolyte. To date, Prof. Suojiang Zhang has published more than 550 papers in journals, and 450 papers of those were published in Science Citation Index (SCI) journals. He has edited 4 books and 2 chapters and has filed over 110 patents for inventions.