Overview

We are interested in a variety of areas in chemical engineering including hydrodynamics of slurry bubble column, molecular modeling and simulation of ionic liquids and supercritical liquids, supporeted ionic liquid catalysis, coolant loop for accelerator driven sub critical nuclear reactors etc. We have conducted experiments for varying gas to liquid flow rates in bubble column reactors to find the transition from homogeneous to heterogeneous regime based on drift flux, statistical and fractal analysis. CFD simulations on these systems have been carried out using FLUENT software. We have used COSMOS-RS, a statistical thermodynamics based approach, to predict VLE/LLE data for multicomponent systems. We have synthesized linear alkyl benzenes by Friedel-Craft alkylation by developing supported catalysts on silica gel/MCM41 backbones with AlCl3 attached to cationic or anionic bound IL embedded in the nanospaces. This overcomes toxicity and corrosiveness of HF/AlCl3 and increases yield and selectivity.

Selected Publications
  • S. Kumar, N. Srinivasulu, P. Munshi and Ashok Khanna, “Flow regime transition identification in three phase co-current bubble columns", The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, 91, 516-523 , 2013.

  • Yamini Sudha. S, Lucky Jain and Ashok Khanna, “Validation and Prediction of Solubility Parameters of Ionic Liquids for CO2 Capture", Separation and Purification Technology, 97 , 51-64, 2012.

  • Rakesh Kumar, Anil Kumar and Ashok Khanna, “Synthesis, characterization and kinetics of AlCl3 supported on silica superacid catalysts for the formation of linear alkyl benzenes", Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis, 106(1),141-155, 2012.

  • Yamini Sudha. S, Ashok Khanna, “Validation and prediction of temperature dependent Henry’s Constant for CO2- Ionic Liquid systems using COSMO-RS", J. Chem. Eng. Data,56(11), 4045-4060, 2011.

  • Tamal Banerjee, Ashok Khanna, “Liquid Liquid Equilibria for Ionic Liquid based systems using COSMO-RS: Effect of Cation and Anion combination", AIChE J ,54, 1874-1885, 2008.

  • Banerjee Tamal, Sahoo, Ranjan Kumar, Rath, Swagat. S., Kumar, Rakesh, Khanna, Ashok, “Multicomponent Liquid-Liquid Equilibria Prediction for Aromatic Extraction Systems Using COSMO-RS", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 46(4),1292-1304 ,2007.

  • Banerjee Tamal, Singh Manish K, Khanna Ashok, “Prediction of binary VLE for imidazolium based ionic liquid systems using COSMO-RS", Erratum to document cited in CA144:496318 Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research , 45(20), 6876, 2006.

  • Manish K.Singh, Tamal Banerjee and Ashok Khanna, “Genetic algorithm to estimate interaction parameters of multicomponent systems for liquid-liquid equilibria", Computers and Chemical Engineering, 29, 1712-1719, 2005.