Engineering professor to receive Sullivant Medal
COLUMBUS – Liang-Shih (L.S.) Fan, Distinguished University Professor and the C. John Easton Professor of Engineering in The Ohio State University Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named the recipient of the Joseph Sullivant Medal, one of the university's highest honors.
Fan is one of the world's leading authorities on fluidization and multiphase flow, powder technology, and energy and environmental reaction engineering. He has invented processes that enable power plants to burn sulfur-rich coal in a more cost-effective, environmentally sound way.
He will be honored during autumn quarter commencement on Sunday (12/11).
Established in 1920 by Ohio State professor of physics Thomas C. Mendenhall, the Sullivant Medal is named for Sullivant, a member of the university's first Board of Trustees. The $10,000 prize is awarded every five years to recognize notable achievements by alumni or faculty members.
Past honorees have come from a variety of fields, including art, chemistry, history, surgery and electrical engineering.
During his 27 years at Ohio State, he has gained international renown for his invention of patented clean coal processes, including "OSCAR" (Ohio State Carbonation Ash Reactivation) and "CARBONOX," (carbon-based NOx reduction technology). Both processes have been successfully demonstrated for flue gas cleaning in coal combustion with the projected economic impact of these processes at billions of dollars globally.
Fan earned his B.S. degree from National Taiwan University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from West Virginia University, all in chemical engineering. He also earned a M.S. in statistics from Kansas State University before joining the Ohio State faculty in 1978. He served as chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 1994 to 2003.
In the laboratory, Fan navigates one of the most important areas of research for the chemical, petrochemical and utility industries: fluidization. Processing plants treat coal, oil and gasoline in giant, roiling vats of hydrocarbons and catalysts. The movement of individual molecules and gas bubbles within the baths affects the efficiency of chemical reactions, and Fan has been studying the motions of these tiny components – a feat that, until recently, defied even the most powerful computers.
His pioneering research has resulted in important scientific discoveries and new technology applications, and directly contributed to the design and operation of several commercial processes. He has developed engineering principles and multiphase processing know-how for synthesizing chemicals that are key to the production of everything from dyes, drugs and perfumes to paint, paper and automobile parts.
Fan has authored three books, 22 book chapters, and hundreds of papers; he also has edited 13 symposia, journal volumes, or books. He holds 12 patents.
He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a corresponding member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.
He has served as a technical leader in the Argonne National Laboratory Midwest Universities Consortium's Multiphase Flow Institute and as consultant to 20 corporations and national laboratories, including Exxon, Shell, DuPont, Union Carbide, and the Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center.
He is an elected member representing the United States on the governing board of the International Congress of the Multiphase Flows and is the founding chair of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Particle Technology Forum, and a member of the National Science Foundation's Active Chemistry Writing Team Leader for a K-12 textbook and the National Academy of Engineering's Minority Engineering Committee.
Fan has received more than 50 awards in recognition of his research and teaching, including the American Chemical Society's E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Alpha Xi Sigma Award for Chemical Engineering Research, the Council for Chemical Research's Malcolm E. Pruitt Award, and the American Society for Engineering Education's Union Carbide Lectureship Award.
