Ali El Kamel is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chair of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department at Khalifa University. His academic journey includes earning a BSc in Chemical Engineering and BSc in Mathematics from the Colorado School of Mines, an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering (Process Systems Engineering Specialization) from Purdue University – West Lafayette, Indiana. At the core of his research program is the development of both theory and applications for process systems engineering. His diverse applications range from planning and scheduling of process operations to energy production, pollution monitoring and control, waste minimization, carbon management, sustainable operations, molecular design, and product formulation. Professor El Kamel is currently focusing on research projects related to energy systems, integration of renewable energy in process operations and energy conversion systems, and the utilization of data analytics (Digitalization), machine learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve process and enterprise-wide efficiency and profitability.
Professor El Kamel teaches graduate and undergraduate courses, covering topics such as optimization techniques, mathematical methods for chemical engineers, applied statistics, numerical methods, systems engineering, process design, industrial ecology, and engineering economy. His influence extends beyond the classroom, as he has supervised over 75 Master's students, 45 PhD students (20 in academia), and more than 45 post-doctoral fellows/research associates. Notably, all of his trainees have successfully secured positions in the chemical process industry and academia.
He has been funded for several research projects from government and industry. Among his accomplishments are the Outstanding Faculty Award, the Best teacher award, the IEOM (Industrial engineering and Operations Management) Outstanding Service and Distinguished Educator Award, UAE MBR Academy of Scientists, The Engineering Research Excellence Award, and Excellence in Graduate Supervision Award. He has been on the program and organization committees of many international conferences. Prof. Elkamel has a strong track record of research excellence. He published over 450 journal articles, 185 proceedings, and 50 book chapters, and has been an invited speaker on numerous occasions at academic institutions throughout the world and at national and international conferences. He has also written 5 books, including “Environmentally Conscious Fossil Energy Production”, “Planning of Refinery and Petrochemical Operations”, and “Electric Vehicles in Energy Systems: Modelling, Integration, Analysis, and Optimization.”
Research Plan
Traditionally, PSE has been concerned with the understanding and development of systematic procedures for the design and operation of chemical and biochemical process systems, ranging from microsystems to industrial scale. Recently, the scope of PSE has been broadened to include systems at larger scales such as supply chains and the business enterprise, and at much smaller scales such as molecular and atomic systems. The use of PSE enables companies to operate inherently safe processes while at the same time reduce production costs, improve quality, increase efficiency, reduce pollution, and bring products to market faster. The long-term research objective of my research is to build on the existing PSE toolset and integrate environmental impact assessment tools. Unlike the traditional approach that focuses on man-made systems and treats environmental requirements as constraints, we will focus on the interactions between process systems and the natural networks, with the aim of establishing harmonious social-economical-technological systems. This research is an emerging area of chemical engineering aimed at applying PSE tools to design, commercialize and use processes and products that are economic, and crucially, that have minimal environmental impact and risk to human health.
Our focus will be on improvements of the existing methodologies in order to create and operate processes which will have minimum environmental impacts and maximum economic benefits in order to reach sustainable development. The consideration of economics along with environmental issues is essential in order to preserve profitability; otherwise, investment will not occur, and environmental protection will be eroded. Models and tools that can be used to improve the efficiency and sustainability of products and processes will be investigated. These methods will stress on the interactions between the industrial and ecological systems and will treat them as networks of interconnected flows. Our goal is to contribute to the development of advanced process systems analysis tools that are able to deal with sustainability in a systematic way and will be able to produce ecologically and economically conscious process systems. We envision a set of robust tools that can be used at a variety of decision points in product and process design; including: (1) Process modifications on existing processes to reduce waste and energy consumption, improve efficiency, and use renewable resources (2), Scheduling process operations to minimize pollution under adverse environmental conditions or under changing regulations, (3) Selection of appropriate pollution reduction options from a superstructure of available technologies, (4) Development of new sustainable processes that abide to economic, safety, and environmental considerations, and (5) Suggest robust green energy and power production pathways. At all decision stages, the focus will be on the use of less energy, lower amounts of non-renewable resources, less waste generation, and an increase in the use of renewable resources while at the same time taking into consideration the contribution of ecosystems and hence adopting a broader view which requires an expansion of the analysis boundaries.
