UNSW chemical engineer receives ExxonMobil Award

UNSW’s Scientia Professor Rose Amal has been awarded one of Australasia’s highest honours for chemical engineers, the ExxonMobil Award, for her research into functional nanoparticles.

The award, which was presented at the Chemeca conference in Wellington, recognises significant ongoing contributions to chemical engineering through innovations and high-impact research publications.

“This is a special honour for me because the selection committee is predominantly from industry,” said Amal. “It’s recognition that our research is significant and has real-world applications beyond the lab.”

Amal leads the Particle and Catalysis Research Group in UNSW’s School of Chemical Engineering and is the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials.

The professor’s work focuses on synthesising nanoparticles and characterising the surfaces of these materials to give them special functionality. The modified particles may have environmental and biomedical applications from water treatment to disease imaging.

“By understanding how you can alter the surface of these materials, you can creatively make the particles more useful,” Amal said. “Using a simple iron oxide, you can make this a vehicle for drug delivery or a vehicle to sense or destroy low concentrations of pollutants in water.”

In addition, Amal has been exploring new ‘photocatalytic’ technologies - using solar energy to generate hydrogen fuel from wastewater. The system also aids the decomposition of organic material in the water.

“Working in chemical engineering, there’s a perception that we’re producing a lot of chemicals that are harmful to the environment,” Amal said.

“But when you understand the chemical processes, you can use that knowledge to help preserve the environment - to treat water, or store sunlight as chemical energy, which is very exciting when you consider Australia’s vast solar potential.”