EFCE Announces Process Intensification Award Winner

Professor Tom Van Gerven, Chairman of EFCE Working Party on Process Intensification; Professor Jean-Marc Le Lann, EFCE Scientific Vice President; Dr. Michael Shoham Patrascu (photography by Alicia Garcia)

The European Federation of Chemical Engineering has named Michael Shoham Patrascu as winner of its 2017 Excellence Award in Process Intensification for his PhD thesis “”Scaled-Down H₂ Production in Pd Membrane Reactors: Process Design and Experimental Investigations.” The award, which includes a €1,500 cash prize, was presented at the 10th World Congress of Chemical Engineering, which took place in early October in Barcelona, Spain.

The award’s judges cited the thesis, completed as part of PhD work at the Technion – I.I.T., Haifa, Israel, for providing excellent breadth and depth, scientific impact, innovation and industrial relevance.

“His work addresses various challenges, including thermodynamic and separation issues, through the design of a single integrated processing unit using highly selective Pd-membranes. This design is a proof of concept for on-board pure H₂ generators, with flexible fuel sources, and holds a great promise to eliminate the need for expensive H₂ transport and storage technologies for portable or stationary applications,” states EFCE.

Access more details here.

Patrascu now is a postdoctoral associate at the Process Systems Engineering Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.