Xiao Su is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his Bachelor in Applied Sciences in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2011. He completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2017, working under the supervision of Professor T. Alan Hatton from Chemical Engineering and Professor Timothy F. Jamison from Chemistry.
Since joining Illinois in 2019, his research seeks to develop new electrochemically-mediated separations through a combination of molecular design and electrochemical engineering. His team has tackled global challenges such as critical element recovery and materials recycling, sustainable mining, environmental remediation and water treatment, as well as green chemical and biochemical manufacturing. A unique focus has been on understanding and leveraging redox-electron transfer at interfaces to achieve selective ion separations, and electrochemically combining reaction and separations for process intensification.
Xiao has been the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2019), the ACS Victor K. Lamer Award (2020), the ISE-Elsevier Prize for Green Electrochemistry (2021), the ACS Unilever Award (2023), the AIChE FRI/Kunesh Awards in Separations (2023), the ACS Satinder Ahuja Young Investigator Award in Separation Science (2024), and the DOE Early Career Award (2024). Xiao’s teaching has also been recognized by the List of Excellent Teachers (2019, 2022), and the School of Chemical Sciences Teaching Award (SCS) in 2023.
15h45 – 17h30
Amphi Anne L'Huillier
Separation processes are critical to critical element recovery, environmental remediation, and sustainable chemical manufacturing. For example, maximizing metal recovery while reducing water and chemical usage are central goals within a range of mining contexts, including primary mining, valorization of tailings water or acid drainage, as well as the sustainable recycling of urban waste streams. Electrochemical approaches are a promising pathway towards sustainable mining and resource recovery, through stimuli-responsive control of selectivity and reversibility.
Control of the redox electron-transfer at electrochemical interfaces allows for reversible binding and release of target molecules. First, we present the development of redox-electrochemical adsorption technologies for the recovery and purification of critical metals, including platinum group metals (PGMs) and rare-earth elements (REEs). We highlight new electrochemical approaches for battery and electronic waste recycling, targeting both noble metals as well as critical elements such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Going beyond adsorption, we demonstrate for the first time how redox-platforms can be translated to continuous and scalable metal extraction operations in an electrochemical liquid-liquid extraction (e-LLE) system.
Finally, we present recent efforts in which electrochemical separations are translated to the value-added recovery of molecules from chemical manufacturing, such as homogeneous catalyst recycling, or even recovery of organic acids from biomanufacturing streams through selective membrane design. We envision next-generation separation processes to take an increasing role in improving efficiency for sustainable manufacturing processes.