UT Tyler Awarded Nearly $224,000 by National Science Foundation
Dr. Aaditya Khanal to study carbon dioxide gas and help find ways to reduce emissions
TYLER (April 13, 2023) – The University of Texas at Tyler has been awarded a $223,567 grant by the National Science Foundation to help find ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the environment. Dr. Aaditya Khanal, UT Tyler assistant professor in the Jasper Department of Chemical Engineering, serves as principal investigator for the project.
“Data-Driven Modeling and Analyses of CO2 Transport in Porous Media” is intended to create computationally efficient models to predict the complex behavior of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, Khanal said, is a gas that leads to global warming and has challenging impacts on human health and the Earth’s ecosystems. The project involves laboratory experimentation, numerical simulation and rigorous data analysis using advanced statistical methods.
“The United States has sufficient subsurface capacity in saline aquifers to store captured emissions from the power sector for at least 100 years,” said Khanal. “If we understand the CO2 behavior in such formations, we can safely store the industrial CO2 and limit the rise in surface temperature until renewable energy can be competitive with fossil fuels.”
Khanal focuses on the areas of energy, environment and data science. Other research focus areas include oil and gas production forecasting, phase behavior modeling and machine learning applications.
“We are so proud of Dr. Khanal and the work he is doing to gain a better understanding of energy use, climate change and strategies to help our environment and limit greenhouse gas emissions,” said Dr. Steven Idell, UT Tyler senior vice president for research.
Undergraduate and graduate students will collaborate with Khanal on the two-year project.
Khanal joined the Jasper Department of Chemical Engineering faculty in 2020. He holds master’s and doctorate degrees in chemical engineering with a research emphasis on reservoir simulation and engineering from the University of Houston. His research has also garnered grants for UT Tyler from the VentureWells Foundation, P&G Foundation and American Chemical Society. He teaches chemical engineering laboratory, thermodynamics and mass transfer at UT Tyler.
With a mission to improve educational and health care outcomes for East Texas and beyond, UT Tyler offers more than 80 undergraduate and graduate programs to 10,000 students. UT Tyler recently merged with The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (now known as UT Tyler Health Science Center). Through its alignment with UT Tyler Health Science Center (HSC) and UT Health East Texas, UT Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education,
cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, UT Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.