An Official Employee Publication From the Office of University Relations

Bala Subramaniam, Dan F. Servey distinguished professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at KU, will present his inaugural lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 15, in Alderson Auditorium at the Kansas Union.

Subramaniam’s topic is “Supercritical fluids: The
intriguing domain between the gas and liquid states of matter.”

Since coming to KU in 1985, Subramaniam’s research has focused on exploiting supercritical fluids in catalytic reactions and in pharmaceutical processing.

His current research strives to develop environmentally friendly processes for producing fuel additives, pharmaceutical drugs and dry cleaning. Researchers at the Higuchi Biosciences Center and the Department of Chemistry are collaborating on the drug and dry cleaning projects, respectively.

“A gas like carbon dioxide that does not have solvent properties at ambient conditions can behave like cleaning solvents when compressed to the right pressure,” Subramaniam said.

“I am excited by this work not only because it provides fundamental scientific challenges, but it has realistic applications in chemical and pharmaceutical processing. The environmentally benign processing potential with supercritical carbon dioxide is really exciting to us. It’s what keeps us going in research.”

In August 2000, Subramaniam was named department chair for chemical and petroleum engineering in the School of Engineering.

He holds seven patents, has co-authored more than 50 research publications, and has presented seminars at 35 universities and keynote lectures at a number of international meetings.

Subramaniam came to KU from the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras, India.