NJIT in the News

Two NJIT faculty members will receive Innovators’ Awards and two recent alumni will be honored at the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame dinner on Oct. 22, 2009 at Stevens Institute of Technology. 

Using a colander to separate pasta from the water in which it was cooked is a commonplace kitchen experience. But what about the cooking water that usually disappears down the drain? Suppose you had a colander with holes that could not only separate pasta and water, but just as easily remove the salt and starch added to the water in the cooking process — making the water so pure that it would taste great.

NJIT Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering Kamalesh K. Sirkar will be honored Oct. 7, 2009 for his pioneering research in membrane separation processes. These processes play a critical and greater role today in several areas of national interest including health care and the production of drinking water.

Kamalesh Sirkar, PhD, distinguished professor of chemical engineering at NJIT, and internationally-renowned expert in membrane separation technologies, has been named a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Chemical engineer Kamalesh Sirkar, PhD, a distinguished professor at NJIT, will discuss Thursday new technologies for desalinating and treating water. Sirkar, an expert in membrane separation technology whose work is supported by grants from the US Department of the Interior and the US Office of Naval Research, will speak at 4:30 p.m. on June 8 at the Harvard Club in New York City.

Chemical engineer Kamalesh Sirkar, PhD, a distinguished professor at NJIT and an expert in membrane separation technology, is leading a team of researchers to develop a breakthrough method to desalinate water. Sirkar said that using his technology, engineers will be able to recover water from brines with the highest salt concentrations. "We especially like our new process because we can fuel it with low grade, inexpensive waste heat,” he said.

Chemical engineers at NJIT have developed a new filtration system to enable scientists and engineers to separate and purify two different kinds of proteins having relatively close molecular weight. Until now, doing such separations with membrane filtration was impossible. "To separate the good from the bad proteins is an important engineering breakthrough," said Kamalesh K. Sirkar, PhD, distinguished professor of chemical engineering and the project's lead researcher. "We believe that pharmaceutical companies will immediately be able to put our research to work."