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Preface to the L.-S. Fan Festschrift It is with great pleasure that we introduce this special issue of I&EC Research in honor of Liang-Shih Fan, C. John Easton Professor in Engineering and Distinguished University Professor, on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Since joining The Ohio State University as an Assistant Professor 30 years ago, he has achieved a well-deserved reputation as an internationally renowned scholar, a dynamic teacher, and a dedicated member of the chemical engineering community. Therefore, it is most fitting that I&EC Research honors him with this Festschrift issue of papers written by his colleagues, collaborators, and former students and associates. As a scholar, L.-S’s international reputations in the fields of particulates reaction engineering, fluidization and multiphase flow, and clean coal technology and gasification are founded on a prolific body of work, which includes 320 journal papers, 25 book chapters, 25 patents, and 3 authored books that are widely used in both academia and industry. His creative and pioneering research is well-known worldwide and he has been invited to deliver over 35 plenary or keynote lectures at international conferences. In the fields of fluidization and multiphase flow, Fan’s work has had an immense impact. He has revealed the intricate dynamic phenomena of bubble, powder/nanoparticle/particle-cluster and fluid interactions in multiphase flow, bubble wake dynamics in three-phase fluidization, high-pressure and hightemperature fluidization characteristics, and multiscale Leidenfrost phenomena of film boiling for evaporative droplet and particle collisions at high temperatures. His outstanding work in this field has been recognized by numerous awards, most notably the International Fluidization Award of Achievement
in 2007 from the Engineering Foundation Conference International, and the 2008 Particle Technology Forum Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIChE. These prestigious awards are among the highest honors bestowed in the fields of fluidization and particle technology. Another major area of L.-S.’s research has been in the field of tomography, where, once again, his impact has been massive. He and his research associates, W. Warsito and Q. Marashdeh, invented the world’s first electric capacitance volume tomography (ECVT) and electrostatic tomography (EST) for real-time three-dimensional imaging of multiphase flow. These significant and influential inventions have made a significant impact on worldwide research efforts in process tomography and have been commercialized for industrial use. Furthermore, NASA has used Fan’s ECVT technology in their research toward applications in imaging dielectric objects during space missions. In the field of clean coal technology and gasification, L.-S. has also had a huge and ongoing impact. His work in this field has been reported in various news media outlets (e.g., AAAS, Discovery, CBS News, and Business Week) and popular magazines (e.g., Physics World, and GeoTime). His work, extending from fundamental bench experimentation to pilotscale demonstration, will undoubtedly transform energy conversion in the future. Among several clean coal processes that Fan has developed are the OSCAR (Ohio State Carbonation Ash Reactivation) process (which captures SO2 and heavy metals), the CARBONOX process (which uses high-sodium char to reduce NOx), the CaRS-CO2 process (which uses calcium-based sorbents to capture CO2 from flue gas at high temperatures), and the pH Swing process (which uses serpentine for CO2
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mineral sequestration). Among several patented gasification processes are the Syn Gas Redox (SGR) process, the Chemical Looping Reforming (CLR) process, and the Calcium Looping process for the conversion of carbonaceous feedstock to hydrogen, electricity, liquid fuels, and chemicals. Some of L.-S.’s processes are being licensed to industries, and some are planned for commercial demonstration. Once again, L.-S.’s work in this field has been recognized with prestigious honors, including the 2006 ACS E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial Engineering and Chemistry, and the 2008 International Pitt Award for Innovation in Coal Conversion from the International Pittsburgh Coal Conference. L.-S.’s pedagogical achievements and influence have also proven to be no less profound. He has served as the thesis advisor for 5 B.S., 33 M.S. and 56 Ph.D. students and has worked with 58 postdoctoral research associates. As an excellent and inspiring teacher, L.-S. has been concerned with developing teaching materials such as textbooks, and providing practical examples in illustrating theories. Many of his former students and research associates are faculty members in academia, including M. Peters (Virginia Commonwealth University), K. Wisecarver (University of Tulsa), K. Tsuchiya (Doshisha University), A. Tsutsumi (Tokyo University), X. T. Bi (University of British Columbia), C. Zhu (New Jersey Institute of Technology), R. Mudde (Delft University), F. Wei (Tsinghua University), W. M. R. Lau (Nanyang Technological University), and A.-H. A. Park (Columbia University). Many others are taking technical leadership roles in the fluidization and fluidparticle field in industries at corporations such as Dow (e.g., P. Cai and B. Du), Exxon-Mobil (e.g., R. Agnihotri and H. Gupta), and Shell (e.g., Y.-M. Chen, G. Q. Yang, P. Gupta, and M. Iyer). Three of his students were honored with the AIChE Particle Technology Forum’s Best Ph.D. in Particle Technology Award. His contributions to teaching have been recognized by The Ohio State University, with the Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the Joseph Sullivant Medal for Distinguished Teaching, Research and Service, which is one of Ohio State’s highest honors, awarded once every five years to an alumnus or a faculty member. In addition to his extensive contributions to research and teaching, L.-S.’s dedication to service in the field of chemical engineering has been wide-ranging. Indeed, his service reflects both his research and teaching interests. Elected to the National
Academy of Engineering in 2001, he has been a member of the National Academy’s Diversity Work Force Committee working toward diversity and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education issues, as well as AIChE’s Societal Impact Operating Council. L.-S. was also the National Science Foundation’s team leader on a high school “Active Chemistry” textbook writing project, which was completed in 2006. The textbook was published in 2007 and he has been active in local and state science fairs for many years. L.-S. is also a member of 10 editorial advisory boards including Powder Technology, AIChE Journal, I&EC Research, and International Journal of Multiphase Flow. Perhaps, most significantly, L.-S. took the leadership role in founding the AIChE’s Particle Technology Forum (PTF) in 1992, and the International Conference Series on Gas-Liquid and Gas-Liquid-Solid Reactor Engineering in 1992; both continue to provide visible and vibrant international activities. Throughout his long and distinguished career, L.-S. has made major research contributions in the aforementioned fields. His work has been extensively documented in the chemical engineering literature in a variety of forums, including textbooks, journal papers, patents, invited reviews, and reports to industry and government. Much of his work, in the best traditions of scientific and applied research, has opened up new vistas of research for others. His work is widely read and cited by other engineers and scientists around the world, while the societal impact of the applications of his work, including its economic impact, are already highly significant and will continue to be so into the future. Indeed, he is currently at work on his fourth book, in collaboration with his students, titled “Chemical Looping for Fossil Energy ConVersion Systems,” which AIChE and Wiley will publish in the coming year. L.-S. is an outstanding scholar of international distinction, an excellent teacher who is devoted to his students, and a leader in his profession who is committed to the promotion of engineering education and the long-term societal impact of the discipline. It comes as no surprise then that L.-S. was named this year as one of the “One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era” by AIChE in its Centennial Celebration. We would like to close, however, on a more personal note by acknowledging that L.-S. has been an extraordinarily supportive and generous colleague to each of us, and this Festschrift issue is offered in the spirit of sincere gratitude.
Robert Pfeffer Department of Chemical Engineering, Arizona State UniVersity, Tempe, Arizona 85287
Jacques Zakin Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State UniVersity, Columbus, Ohio 43210
Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park Department of Earth and EnVironmental Engineering and Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia UniVersity, New York, New York 10027 IE801680X
