Please join the Environmental Change Initiative for a virtual seminar presented by Kirti Yenkie, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Rowan University.

Her talk is on "Synthesis of Efficient Wastewater Treatment Networks via the P-graph approach."

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Abstract: The rise in world population and industrialization has tremendously increased the water demand and has resulted in wastewater contaminated with several pollutants. Thus, wastewater treatment, reuse, and safe disposal have become crucial for meeting the increased demands and sustainable existence.

To this end, we propose the P-graph process network synthesis framework for designing wastewater treatment routes that encompass the sequence of technologies (operations) to remove contaminants via the differences in their physical or chemical properties. These differences in properties contribute to the driving forces that aid in the separation of contaminants and water recovery.

In the proposed work the stage-wise approach comprising of preliminary, primary, secondary, and tertiary stages along with the detailed structural connections among technologies within a stage as well as across multiple stages allows for a holistic comparison. Furthermore, the P-graph axioms lead to the identification of all plausible wastewater treatment networks as well as provide information regarding their structural feasibility. The problem is solved via the Accelerated Branch-n-Bound algorithm that provides a ranked list of optimal and feasible structures based on Economics and Environmental Sustainability metrics.

Bio: Kirti Yenkie has 12+ years of experience in the Process Systems Engineering area with applications focusing on sustainability and environmental resource management. She is leading the Sustainable Design & Systems Medicine Lab at RU, which has capabilities to work with major programming, simulation tools and has high-performance computing resources. She holds a PhD in from the University of Illinois-Chicago, MTech from IIT Bombay, and BTech from LIT Nagpur-India. She has postdoctoral research experiences from University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Delaware. Her ongoing research projects on green engineering, solvent recovery, optimizing lube-oil operations, and wastewater asset management are funded by the USEPA, ExxonMobil, AstraZeneca, and Atlantic County Utilities Authority. She is an active member of the AIChE and currently serves on the Executive Committees of the AIChE-Environmental Division, Sustainable Engineering Forum, and the Academic Subcommittee of the AIChE-Delaware Valley Section.