Badie Morsi, PhD

Professor and Director of the Petroleum Engineering Program

809 Benedum Hall | 3700 O’Hara Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15261 P: 412-624-9650

morsi@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~rapel

Professor Badie I. Morsi joined the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh in 1982 and currently is Director of the Petroleum Engineering Program. He received his B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1972; and M.S., PhD and ScD in Chemical Engineering from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Industries Chimiques (ENSIC), Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL) Nancy, France, in 1977, 1997, and 1982, respectively. Professor Morsi’s research activities involve different aspects of Chemical, Environmental, and Petroleum Engineering. His recent research work focuses on: design and scaleup of multiphase reactors, and modeling and optimization of industrial processes with focus on the Fischer Tropsch Synthesis. CO2 sequestration in deep coal seams; CO2 capture from syngas and natural gas streams using chemical and physical solvents; and EOR using CO2 and alcohols. Professor Morsi is serving as the Executive Director for the Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference (PCC) and has been serving as a consultant to major corporations and organizations in the US and worldwide, in addition of being a reviewer for numerous scientific journals, conferences and agencies. Professor Morsi is the Editor, Proceedings of the International PCC; Associate Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy; Editorial Board, International Journal of Chemical Engineering; and Editorial Board, Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering. Among his various honors are the Beitle-Veltri School of Engineering’s Outstanding Teaching Award (1999); CNG Faculty Fellow (1991-1995); The Richard A. Glenn Award, ACS National Meetings (1995&2002); Mentor of the Year Award, 2002-2003 Minority Engineering Mentoring Program; and George M. and Eva M. Bevier professorship (2001-2005). He is also a member of SPE, AIChE, ACS, and AFS.

Multi-Phase Reactor Design and Scaleup

The design, scaleup, modeling, and optimization of industrial processes require, among others, precise knowledge of the hydrodynamic, kinetics and heat as well as mass transfer parameters of the pertinent gas-liquid-solid systems under actual process conditions. The focus of our ongoing research is on characterization of the hydrodynamic and gas-liquid mass transfer parameters in several important industrial processes, including Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, propylene polymerization, cyclohexane oxidation, benzoic acid oxidation, toluene oxidation, hydrocracking of heavy oil residue, CO2 capture from fuel gas streams using chemical/ physical solvents, and SOx and well as NO x removal from flue gas using dry sorbents.

Novel Solvents for CO2 Capture from Hot Fuel Gas Streams

Carbon dioxide is the main contributor to global warming and therefore needs to be removed from fuel gas streams. Conventional processes for acid gas removal (AGR), including CO2 in power generation facilities are either chemical, using methyl-diethanolamine (MDEA); or physical process, using chilled methanol (Rectisol) or mixtures of dimethylethers of polyetheleneglycol (Selexol). The issue with using Selexol is that it is hydrophilic and the process is not energy efficient as it requires cooling the fuel gas and then heating it after CO2 absorption. Therefore, finding other solvents with more favorable properties is necessary to remove CO2 more efficiently.

Process Modelling and Optimization

Development of robust reactor and process models is of vital importance and interest to all branches of the chemical and petroleum, and biological process industries. Our ongoing modeling activities include process modeling and optimization of the FischerTropsch (F-T) Synthesis by incorporating different tail gas recycling options, in addition to 1-D and 2-D empirical modeling of Slurry Bubble Column Reactors (SBCRs) and 1-D empirical modeling of Microchannel reactors (MCRs) using the axial dispersion model. Moreover, multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling with emphasis on F-T SBCRs through the developing of mathematical 3-D multi-Eulerian and/ or Eulerian-Lagrangian CFD model for investigating key spatio-temporal complexities and local hydrodynamics, and CFD modeling with emphasis on F-T MCRs to evaluate process intensification capabilities.