Xiao Su

About

Xiao Su is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his Bachelor in Applied Sciences in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2011 and completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2017. During his doctoral studies at MIT, he worked under the supervision of Professor T. Alan Hatton from Chemical Engineering and Professor Timothy F. Jamison from Chemistry. His doctoral research focused on electrochemically-mediated water purification, for which he received the MIT Water Innovation Prize and the MassCEC Catalyst Award. Since joining the University of Illinois, Xiao Su has been recognized with several prestigious awards including the NSF CAREER Award (2019), the ACS Victor K. Lamer Award (2020), the ISE-Elsevier Prize for Green Electrochemistry (2021), the ACS Unilever Award (2023), and the AIChE FRI/John G. Kunesh Award (2023). His research focuses on molecular engineering for advanced separations and process intensification.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Organic chemistry
• Inorganic chemistry
• Chemical engineering
• Combinatorial chemistry
• Nanotechnology
• Physical chemistry
• Metallurgy
• Biochemical engineering

Selected publications

• Charge-transfer materials for electrochemical water desalination, ion separation and the recovery of elements

  Nature Reviews Materials · 2020 · 639 citations

  DOI

• Electrochemical Methods for Water Purification, Ion Separations, and Energy Conversion

  Chemical Reviews · 2022 · 560 citations

  Agricultural development, extensive industrialization, and rapid growth of the global population have inadvertently been accompanied by environmental pollution. Water pollution is exacerbated by the decreasing ability of traditional treatment methods to comply with tightening environmental standards. This review provides a comprehensive description of the principles and applications of electrochemical methods for water purification, ion separations, and energy conversion. Electrochemical methods…

  DOI

• Selective cobalt and nickel electrodeposition for lithium-ion battery recycling through integrated electrolyte and interface control

  Nature Communications · 2021 · 161 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  by electrostatic stabilization, which tunes cobalt selectivity depending on the polyelectrolyte loading. This strategy is applied for the multicomponent metal recovery from commercially-sourced lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide electrodes. We report a final purity of 96.4 ± 3.1% and 94.1 ± 2.3% for cobalt and nickel, respectively. Based on a technoeconomic analysis, we identify the limiting costs arising from the background electrolyte, and provide a promising outlook of selective electrodep…

  DOI

• Molecular Tuning of Redox‐Copolymers for Selective Electrochemical Remediation

  Advanced Functional Materials · 2020 · 71 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Molecular design of redox‐materials provides a promising technique for tuning physicochemical properties which are critical for selective separations and environmental remediation. Here, the structural tuning of redox‐copolymers, 4‐methacryloyloxy‐2,2,6,6‐tetramethylpiperidin‐1‐oxyl (TMA) and 4‐methacryloyloxy‐2,2,6,6‐tetramethylpiperidine (TMPMA), denoted as P(TMA x ‐ co ‐TMPMA 1− x ), is investigated for the selective separation of anion contaminants ranging from perfluorinated substa…

  DOI

• Electrochemical recycling of homogeneous catalysts

  Science Advances · 2022 · 47 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  up to 200 milligrams of platinum per gram of adsorbent) from product mixtures, with up to 99.5% recovery, while retaining full catalytic activity over multiple cycles. The combination of mechanistic studies and electronic structure calculations indicate that selective interactions with anionic intermediates during the catalytic cycle played a key role in the separations. Last, continuous flow cell studies support the scalability and favorable technoeconomics of electrochemical recycling.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Molecular Design of Electrochemically-Mediated Systems for Isomeric Separations

  NSF · $523k · 2020–2025

• Faradaic electrochemically-mediated processes for micropollutant remediation

  NSF · $360k · 2019–2022

Frequent coauthors

• T. Alan Hatton

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  32 shared

• Johannes Elbert

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  27 shared

• Nayeong Kim

  19 shared

• Kwiyong Kim

  Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

  14 shared

• Stephen Cotty

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  13 shared

• Raylin Chen

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  13 shared

• Jemin Jeon

  13 shared

• Jin Soo Kang

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  12 shared

Labs

• Su Research GroupPI

Education

• Ph.D., Chemical Engineering

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  2005

• M.S., Chemical Engineering

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  2002

• B.S., Chemical Engineering

  University of Science and Technology of China

  1999

Awards & honors

• ACS Analytical Division Satinder Ahuja Award in Separation S…
• DOE Early Career Award (2024)
• AIChE Separations Division FRI/John G. Kunesh Award (2023)
• Unilever Award Recipient (2023)
• Center for Advanced Study, Fellow (2022)

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