Application of Membranes in the Petroleum Industry

This book focuses on the advantageous features of membrane technology in petroleum industries, with an emphasis on membrane materials and the application of membranes in the separation of olefin-paraffin, oil-water, aliphatic-aromatics, heavy metals, etc., along with other applications like waste management, sulphur emission, enhanced oil recovery, and so forth. It also discusses the design and development of membranes from novel materials, the challenges of new materials for membrane applications, membrane-based processes, and the application of novel membrane-based processes in the petroleum industry.

Features:
- Addresses the fundamental applications of membranes in petroleum industrial separation processes.
- Highlights the role of membrane technology in waste management in petroleum industries.
- Includes novel engineered membrane materials.
- Discusses methods of extracting valuable substances from produced water and membrane fouling control.
- Emphasises solving industrial problems pertinent to membrane usage.

This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in chemical and petroleum engineering and membrane technology.

Dr. Swapnali Hazarika is a dedicated researcher in the field of separation science & technology, design of adsorbent, design of customized membrane, membrane separation study including chiral separations, biomolecule separations, gas separations, wastewater treatment etc. Her study also includes membrane-based isolation and purifications of natural products, biochemical reaction engineering and mechanism, kinetic analysis of reaction diffusion, modeling and simulation, QSAR-QSPR study etc. Under her supervision, three numbers of technologies have been developed whereas two technologies have already been transferred to the industries. She has published 60 research papers and granted 5 patents in her credit. She has presented 81 seminar papers and delivered more than 100 talks in the national and international conferences/workshops. She also has one book and 9 numbers of book chapters in her credit. Dr. Hazarika has guided 13 PhD students and many project fellows. She has developed 3 technologies and transferred to private parties. Dr Hazarika has collaborative research program with petroleum industries in some specific research problem. She has handled 23 R&D projects till date.

Dr Achyut Konwar is a post-doctoral researcher in the Centre for Petroleum Research, CSIR - North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST). He received a MSc degree in Chemistry and MTech in Polymer Science and Technology. Dr Konwar has received his PhD degree in Chemistry. He is a passionate researcher in the field of polymeric hybrid materials. His research includes development of polymeric composites for different applications like packaging, membrane design, environmental remediation, biomedical, electronic etc. Dr Konwar has published more than 15 number of research articles in different reputed journals and 3 book chapters with international publication houses. He has 2 number of patents granted in his name.

Dr. G. Narahari Sastry is currently working as the Director of CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat. Prof. Sastry is a chemist, working in the interdisciplinary areas spanning chemistry, biology, modeling and informatics. Dr. Sastry has been effective in employing computational and theoretical methods to solve a problem in chemistry, biology and allied areas. These efforts are embedded not only to provide a robust platform for carrying out research in CADD but also to inculcate the culture of developing software packages. G. Narahari Sastry has made fundamental contributions in the areas: a) computational and theoretical chemistry; b) theoretical organic chemistry and reaction mechanism;c) Software and data base development for drug discovery (Molecular Property Diagnostic Suite, b) non-covalent interactions), c) Non-covalent interactions d) cooperativity of non-covalent interactions, e) computer-aided drug design. Under his guidance 29 people were awarded Ph.D., 20 Post-doctoral fellows, 200 students have done internship or short-term projects. His research work was published in more than 330 research papers and reviews, which received about 12800 citations, with an h-index of 54.

Prof. Sastry was awarded with Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences (2011), (considered as one of the highest prize for science and engineering in India) National Bioscience award, DBT 2009, (one of the highest for Life sciences in India), Swarnajayanthi Fellowship 2005 (DST), B.M. Birla award for 2001, BC Deb Memorial award (2009), CRSI silver medal in 2023(bronze medal in 2010), and Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. He is also Sir J. C. Bose National Fellow. He was a visiting professor at IMS, Japan; LMU, Munich, Germany; Jackson State University, USA, and Kyushu University, Japan. He is a Fellow of Fellow of INSA (FNA), National Academy of Sciences (FNASc), Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (FASc), fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Fellow of Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy, Telangana State Academy of Sciences (Founder Fellow) and Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences (FAPAS)and also Fellow of Biotech Research Society, India (BRSI).