Arun S Moharir

Biography

B.Tech. Chemical Engg., Nagpur University, 1975 Ph.D. Chemical Engg., I.I.T., Kanpur, 1980

Research Interest

The Adsorptive Separations, both gas and liquid phase, has been the main area of research. Comprehensive generic simulation models for liquid phase SMB (Simulated Moving Bed) process has been developed and tested for systems of industrial importance such as Parex process for p-Xylene, Molex process for n-paraffins separation from kerosene feedstock. etc. A versatile generic simulation model has been developed for PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) process which covers all variations such as VSA, PVSA, RCPSA etc. The model covers all embodiments of hardware such as 2, 3, or multi-bed systems. Extension of the work to cascaded PSA process to handle separations of systems offering low selectivity and which would otherwise not fit the selection criteria for employment of Adsorptive separation, has been proposed and its applicability for Argon separation from Argon-Oxygen mixture has been conceptually demonstrated. The PSA model has been used for Design and Development of a process for natural gas treatment. An industrial unit has been commissioned based on this work. Present extension of the work involves a hybrid adsorptive separation process where adsorption part is in liquid phase and regeneration is by a gas phase thermal swing. A pilot scale industrial unit for olefin drying will soon be used to generate data to validate this model. Another area of interest is reactor modelling and simulation. Simulation based optimization/debottlenecking studies have been used for sulphuric acid manufacturing, hydrogenation, vegetable oil splitting etc. The reactors involved include packed bed catalytic reactors, non-catalytic spray columns, trickle bed reactors etc. GRM, generalized reactor model, has been developed to cover catalytic and noncatalytic reactors of most industrially important embodiments. Another interest has been in the area of design and engineering of equipment and piping systems of chemical process industry. IIT Bombay's CEP course on Piping Engineering has been conducted for nearly 25 years and has benefitted about 10000 fresh and working engineers across the globe. Demand from various geographies led to the development of the on-line version of this course. The Piping Engineering course is available in both the contact & on-line mode.