The technology director of one of the world’s largest gas companies, the BOC Group, will give a public lecture Friday, March 31, at West Virginia University .
Satish Tamhankar will speak onSustainable Energy Challenges and R&D Opportunitiesat 9 a.m. in Assembly Room A at the National Research Center for Coal and Energy (NRCCE), Evansdale Campus.
The lecture is part of the WVU Department of Chemical Engineering’s Dow/Union Carbide Corporation Jean B. Cropley Distinguished Seminar Series.
The world’s fossil fuel resources are rapidly dwindling while demand for energy is growing at an exponential rate,Tamhankar said.At the same time, there is growing concern over pollution and climate change issues associated with energy use. There are a variety of opinions and views regarding the best solution to the problem, and there are as many complex issuestechnical, environmental, social and geo-political. But one thing is clear: Other than going back to the pre-industrial-age lifestyle, the only long-term, sustainable solution is to develop economically viable technologies to harness energy from renewable resources.
Tamhankar has been with The BOC Group for more than 20 years. His experience spans a variety of fields involving catalysis, gas separations, advanced materials and chemical process development.
As the director of technology, he coordinates and provides critical technical support to BOC ’s Global Sustainable Energy team in their business development efforts. This involves techno-economic evaluation of emerging technologies for renewable energy, hydrogen production and storage, and fuel cell applications.
Over the past several years, he has successfully developed technologies to commercial stage, and has been a key player in developing innovative options for improved chemical processes, focused on customer solutions.
Prior to joining BOC , Tamhankar was a research faculty member at the California Institute of Technology. Before that, he was on the faculty of the WVU Department of Chemical Engineering, where he taught the reaction-engineering course, and guided master’s students working on coal gasification. He obtained a doctorate in physical chemistry at the National Chemical Laboratory in India in 1978.
Tamhankar has published over 40 papers in international journals and holds more than 20 U.S. patents. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and Catalysis Society, and has served as a technical reviewer for Industrial&Engineering Chemistry Research, and for the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
For further information on the lecture or the Dow Seminar Series, contact the Department of Chemical Engineering at 304-293-2111.