Chunqing Liu

Clean energy transition to achieve net zero global emissions by midcentury requires new technologies such as CO₂ capture and utilization, and green H₂ technologies. Innovation has been the engine for the development of breakthrough membrane technologies for clean energy transition. Advances in membrane materials, fabrication methods, module and process design, and integration of membranes with other technologies have been crucial to the increased industrial adoption of membrane technologies for a wide range of applications. This talk will discuss the design and development of several generations of UOP’s Separex^TM commercial membrane technologies for large-scale CO₂ and H₂S removal from natural gas, enhanced oil recovery, biogas purification, olefin/paraffin separations, helium and hydrogen purification and recovery applications. Our most recent efforts in discovering and developing novel membranes for flow battery applications for energy storage, as well as new catalyst-coated membranes (CCMs) for water electrolysis applications for green hydrogen production will also be discussed. The novel CCMs developed at UOP have shown both reduced CapEx and OpEx compared to the commercially available CCMs for proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis and anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis, enabled by the breakthrough proprietary high ionic conductivity PEMs and AEMs, high activity catalysts, and new catalyst coating ink formulas. 

Dr. Chunqing Liu is an R&D Sr. Fellow and Sr. Manager at Honeywell UOP. She is currently leading a multi-disciplinary Membranes, Polymers, and Green H2 R&D group in pioneering membrane technologies for clean energy transition such as green hydrogen production, fuel cells, energy storage, hydrogen separation and purification, and natural gas upgrading at UOP. She has been awarded 103 U.S. patents, authored 5 book chapters and over 50 peer-reviewed publications. She was elected as a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2024. She received Honeywell Rajiv Singh Sustainability Award in 2024, Honeywell CEO’s Innovative and Create Value for Customers Award and Honeywell UOP Technology Leadership Award in 2023, Honeywell Innovation Initiators Award in 2022, Honeywell UOP Stine Star Award in 2019, the ACS Women Chemists Committee Rising Star Award in 2015, and Honeywell Excellence in Innovation Award in 2010. Chunqing received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Chemistry, the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. She worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before she joined UOP in 2004.

• Time: 11:00 AM
• Location: 206 Furnas Hall