Professor
Dr. Saleh Esmail Rawadieh

Curriculum Vitae
  • Major: Transport Phenomena in chemical reactions/ Modelling and simulation of Chemical Processes
  • College: College of Engineering
  • Department(s): Chemical Engineering Department
  • E-mail: rawadieh@ahu.edu.jo
  • Phone No.: 0797447344

Integrated Reaction and Separation Systems

Many industrially important chemical reactions are limited by the equilibrium conversion of reactants within a feed and product mix. For most chemical processes, the effluent from the reactor is separated into unconverted reactants, by-products and products. The unconverted feed is usually recycled, and the products and by-products are separated for meeting requisite specifications. Process Intensification (PI) through integrated reaction and separation, presents one of the most important trends in today’s process technology. It consists in the development of innovative processes that offer drastic improvements in chemical manufacturing and processing, substantially decreasing equipment volume, energy consumption, or waste formation, and ultimately leading to cheaper, safer, sustainable technologies. This combining of the reaction and separation steps in a single unit operation known as reactive separation process (RSP) or integrated reactive separation (IRS) and the process unit is called a multifunctional reactor. The potential advantages of process integration are:

  • Greater productivity
  • Higher selectivity
  • Reduced energy consumption
  • Improved safety
  • Reduced catalyst requirement
  • Achieve difficult separations
  • Heat transfer integration
  • Avoidance of chemical wastes

Integrated Design, Optimization and Control

The emphasis in industry on energy savings, sustainable processes and environmental protection has driven process systems engineers, including design and operations engineers, to incorporate a number of crucial steps in developing integrated designs of chemical processes. Design teams are required to integrate the process with control to satisfy economical, environmental and social objectives, while at the same time achieving optimal performance.

Past Research

The purpose of my thesis was to investigate the enhancement of reactive systems using multifunctional reactors. The catalytic separative configurations with optimization of operating conditions were explored in such systems. Fixed-bed columns containing solid catalysts and adsorbents were employed for simultaneous reaction and separation. Theoretical and experimental evaluations of packed-bed adsorptive reactors with and without pressure swing (PSR) effect were been carried out in order to gain conceptual understanding of how the layering of the catalyst and adsorbent within a bed would affect the separation enhanced reaction. Three different reaction schemes were considered: metathesis of propene, dehydrogenation of 1-butene, and steam reforming of methane (SMR). The former reactions represent a single limited-equilibrium reaction case in which the kinetics and thermodynamics of the reaction enables operation at mild condition such as ambient. The product of interest (ethene) could be recovered in the high-pressure reaction/adsorption stream by removing 2-butene and propene.

Current Research

Reaction kinetics and the mechanisms and thermochemistry

 

Due to the deficiency of research funding and inadequate research resources in Jordan, I couldn't add much to my basic research of interest. So, I have joined my department colleague's interests in the fields of reaction kinetics and the mechanisms and thermochemistry of species. We had made significant contributions to the understanding of the formation and destruction of highly toxic pollutants from thermal processes, low-temperature oxidation of hydrocarbons and behaviour of nitrogen content in fuels.

 

Solar Desalination

Energy and water are both essential for sustainable development in all sectors. Jordan and most of the Middle East countries are facing serious challenges in terms of limited resources of energy and fresh water. Jordan imports of about 98% of its energy need which accounts for 13% of the GDP in 2009. Ma’an city has favourable geographic and climatic conditions that allow the development of the major national productive projects utilizing renewable energy sources. This is indicated by a number of imported renewable energy technologies (solar and wind) being constructed in Ma’an and other cities in Jordan. My recent research works were focusing on theoretical and experimental investigation of availability of solar radiation in Ma'an region, Jordan (Latitude: 31 N, Longitude: 36 E). A mathematical model was developed and designed to investigate variations of the received solar radiation on horizontal and inclined surfaces of solar stills with different orientations. In addition, a solar desalination model was developed and integrated with the solar radiation model. The output of the validated solar radiation model was used as an input to the solar desalination model. The integrated model was used to investigate the effect of geometrical and operational parameters on the performance of single slope, double slope and pyramidal solar stills. Model simulations were validated against experimental measurements and, then, the optimum settings for the enhanced performance were obtained.

Exploring Reactions of Amines-Model Compounds with NH2: In Relevance to Nitrogen Conversion Chemistry in Biomass
A study on optimum insulation thickness of cold storage walls in all climate zones of Jordan
A kinetic model for evolution of H2 and CO over Zr-doped Ceria
Mechanisms for the Formation of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Furans (PCDD/Fs) from Chlorinated Toluenes
Optimal tilt angle trajectory for maximizing solar energy potential in Ma'an area in Jordan
Experimental and numerical performance analysis and optimization of single slope, double slope and pyramidal shaped solar stills
Solar desalination under concentrated solar flux and reduced pressure conditions
Catalyst-Adsorbent Configurations in Enhancing Adsorptive Reactor Performance
  • Research Summary
  • Fixed-bed columns containing solid catalysts and adsorbents were employed for simultaneous reaction and separation. The models developed for propene metathesis were validated with experimental data for configurations with and without the effect of pressure swing reaction. The models for the mass and momentum transfer in the catalyst bed and adsorber were solved using orthogonal collocation within the method of lines. The reactor/separator performances were tested for beds with varying numbers of layers of catalysts and adsorbents which were arranged sequentially. The pressure reaction columns behaved as reactor/separators in series. As the number of layers increased, a homogeneous distribution of the catalyst and adsorbent was approached in the limit. These configurations with variable catalyst/adsorbent distributions were investigated for propene metathesis reaction, in terms of product purity, selectivity, conversion, recovery, yield and productivity. Improved reactor performance was observed with a pressure swing separation system and in particular with close to well-mixed reactor/separator configurations.
  • Research link
  • key words
Theoretical study on the reaction of hydrogen atoms with aniline
Theoretical study of thermochemical and structural parameters of chlorinated isomers of aniline
Theoretical study on thermochemical parameters and IR spectra of chlorinated isomers of nitrobenzene
Theoretical study on the unimolecular decomposition of proline
The influence of intermediate radical termination and fragmentation on controlled polymer synthesis via RAFT polymerization
Adsorptive separation in the enhancement of butene dehydrogenation
  • Research Summary
  • Fixed-bed columns containing solid catalysts and adsorbents were employed for simultaneous reaction and separation. The models developed for butene dehydrogenation reaction were validated with experimental data. The model was then employed for variable bed configurations with and without the effect of pressure and vacuum swing reaction (PSR and VSR). The models for the mass and momentum transfer in the catalyst bed and adsorber were solved using orthogonal collocation within the method of lines. The reactor/separator performances were tested for beds with varying numbers of layers of catalysts and adsorbents arranged sequentially. The reaction columns behaved as reactor/separators in series. As the number of layers increased, a homogeneous distribution of the catalyst and adsorbent was approached in the limit. These configurations with variable catalyst/adsorbent distributions were investigated in terms of product purity, selectivity, conversion, recovery and yield. Improved reactor performance was observed with pressure and vacuum swing separation systems and in particular with close to well-mixed reactor/separator configurations.
  • Research link
  • key words
Steam reforming for hydrogen generation with in situ adsorptive separation
Theoretical derivation for reaction rate constants of H abstraction from thiophenol by the H/O radical pool
Optimizing packing heterogeneity for sorption enhanced metathesis reaction
Structures and Thermodynamic Stability of Cobalt Molybdenum Oxide (CoMoO 4-II)
The Effectiveness of Zn Leaching from EAFD Using Caustic Soda
Effect of air and oxyfuel staged combustion on oil shale fly ash formation with direct in-furnace limestone addition for sulphur retention
Reaction of Hydroperoxy Radicals with Primary C1–5 Alcohols: A Profound Effect on Ignition Delay Times


Saleh Rawadieh and Gomes, V. G. “Multi-step Multi-layer Enhanced Adsorptive Reactor”.The Second Jordanian International Conference of Materials Science and Engineering, 4-6 September 2007, Amman-Jordan.

 

Saleh Rawadieh and Gomes, V. G. “Optimising Configurations for Enhanced Performance of Adsorptive Reactors” 35th Australasian Chem Eng Conference, 23-26 September, 2007. Melbourne, Australia.

 

Saleh Rawadieh and Gomes, V. G. “Optimal Bed Configuration in a Multifunctional Dehydrogenation Reactor” 36th Australasian Chem Eng Conference, 28 September – 1 October, 2008. Newcastle, Australia.

 

Saleh Rawadieh and Gomes, V. G. “Non-isothermal Steam Reforming Integrated with Adsorptive Separation” the 8th World Congress of Chemical Engineering (WCCE8), 23 –27 August, 2009. Montréal, Canada.


Saleh Rawadieh and Gomes, V. G. “Multiobjective Multifunctional Reactor for Steam Reforming” 37th Australasian Chem Eng Conference, 27-30 September, 2009. Perth, Australia.

 

Member of the Engineering and Nanotechnology Committee, Scientific Research Fund, Ministry of Higher Education, Jordan (10/2018-present)

Member of University Council / Al-Hussein Bin Talal University ( 2014/2015)

Renewable Energy Research & development Council Member Al-Hussein Bin Talal University (2016 - present)

Member of the Technical and Evaluation Committee for the selection of the contractor for the construction of the 20 MW PV power plant at AHU
.
Member of committee for supervising the construction of 3MW PV power plant, at AHU

Member of committee for establishing renewable energy master degree program in AHU University

Member of Technical Committee of the 7thJordan International Chemical Engineering Conference (JIChE07)

Member of the Jordan Engineers Association Scientific Committee for Graduation Projects Evaluation(2013, 2014,2017,2018)

Member of Faculty Council / Faculty Engineering / Al-Hussein Bin Talal University

Member of Equipment Specification Committee, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University (2010)

Director of AHU Renewable Energy Research & development Center (2017 - present) 

Head of Chemical Engineering Department, AHU (2013 - 2016)

Director of Engineering Workshops, AHU (2010 - 2011)

 


Separation Processes
Solid particulate
Chemical industries
Chemical reaction engineering I & II
Principles of chemical Engineering
Physical chemistry
Thermodynamic 1
Fluid mechanics
Process dynamics and control
Engineering mathematics
Process Modeling by Statistical Methods
Safety engineering
Process Modeling and Simulation
and supervising many Graduation projects

Academic qualifications and certificates

PhD in Chemical Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 2005 – 2009.

Master of Engineering Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, 2004 – 2005.

Advanced Courses in Environmental Engineering, California State University, Sacramento, 2001.

Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering-University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan, 1994-1999.

Scientific Stream Tawjehee Certificate, Wadi Mousa Secondary School, 1993-1994.





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