About Me
Bala Subramaniam is the Dan F. Servey Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Kansas (KU). Subramaniam earned a B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the A. C. College of Technology, Chennai, India and his Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has also held visiting professorships at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and Institute of Process Engineering, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland. Subramaniam's research interests are in catalysis, reaction engineering and crystallization. In particular, his research harnesses the pressure-tunable physicochemical properties of unconventional solvents such as supercritical fluids and gas-expanded liquids in multiphase catalysis to develop resource-efficient technologies with reduced environmental footprint. He has authored nearly 200 refereed research publications and 30 issued patents, edited 2 books, presented invited seminars at nearly 100 academic institutions and companies, and given keynote/plenary lectures at nearly 50 conferences. Subramaniam is the Director of the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC), initiated as a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (NSF-ERC), and now a successful center known for its unique industry collaboration model and multi-scale approach to delivering innovations. In partnership with member companies (including ADM, BASF Catalysts, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron Phillips, DuPont, Eastman Chemicals, Evonik, ExxonMobil, Grace, Invista, Procter&Gamble, Reliance Industries, SABIC, Solvay and UOP), the CEBC is developing and providing licensing opportunities for novel sustainable technologies related to fuels and chemicals. Subramaniam is also a co-founder of CritiTech, Inc., a pharmaceutical company with a mission to commercialize the production of fine-particle compounds based on his group's inventions. Subramaniam is the executive editor of ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering and chair of the 2018 Gordon Research Conference on Green Chemistry. He serves on the editorial boards of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering and Chemical Engineering Technology. He has also been on the scientific and organizing committees of several international symposia in catalysis and reaction engineering, co-chairing the Eighteenth International Symposium on Chemical Reaction Engineering (ISCRE-18, Chicago, 2004) and the Joint India-U.S. Chemical Engineering Conference on Energy and Sustainability (Mumbai, 2013). He has also served as the President of ISCRE, Inc., and served on the Board of Directors of the Organic Chemical Reactions Society (ORCS). Subramaniam has received several awards for teaching and research, including the Dow Outstanding Young Faculty Award from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE); a Silver Anniversary Teaching Award and H.O.P.E. (Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator) award finalist recognitions from KU; the Henry Gould Award for Teaching and a Sharp Teaching Professorship from the KU School of Engineering; Higuchi Research Achievement Award, the highest recognition for research given by KU; a "Distinguished Catalyst Researcher" lectureship from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; and a "Chemcon Distinguished Lectureship Award" from the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers. Subramaniam is a Fellow of the AIChE, the ACS Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Division, and the National Academy of Inventors. The modern day 'petrochemical' refinery relies primarily on fossil-based feedstock (such as petroleum, natural gas and coal) to produce the essential chemical intermediates for everyday products (medicines, packaging materials, synthetic fibers, detergents, coolants, etc.). To meet the sharply increasing global demand for such products, alternate feedstocks such as plant-based biomass and shale gas are also being considered to make these chemical intermediates. These alternate sources, however, require the development of new technologies. Our research is focused on developing resource-efficient technologies, which conserve feedstock and energy, for both conventional and emerging sources. We address this challenge by discovering catalysts that selectively transform the feedstock to desired products minimizing waste, using tunable solvents that provide both reaction benefits and environmental benefits such as reduced toxicity and carbon footprints, and developing novel reactors that are energy-efficient in converting raw materials to products. Working in collaboration with several industry partners of the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC), we have demonstrated such novel alternative technologies for many important chemical intermediates. In addition to economic assessment, we also perform cradle-to-grave life cycle analysis (LCA) of the new technologies to assess environmental performance and sustainability. One such technology for making ethylene oxide (a plastic precursor) received a prestigious award from the American Chemical Society. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), a global leader in agricultural processing, recently opened research operations in Lawrence, KS to work closely with University of Kansas CEBC researchers to develop technologies that convert ADM's myriad plant-based feedstocks to value-added products. Such collaborations have been augmented by funding from federal agencies (US Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency) to the tune of nearly $18 million since 2011. The development of such technologies has significant economic implications for the State of Kansas given its unique mix of natural resources that include not only plant-based biomass but also natural gas, crude oil and wind energy potential. A manufacturing sector built around these resources can be thriving and make Kansas among the global leaders in the manufacture and export of "renewable chemicals.”