Supercritical Fluid Technology for Materials Processing, Engineering and Biomedical Applications

Dr. Aamir Hussain Bhat is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry, at the Higher College of Technology, Muscat, Oman. He received his Doctorate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. He has four years’ postdoctoral experience from the Universiti Sains Malaysia and around 5 years teaching experience as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry at the Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia. His research interests include polymer bio-nanocomposites; nanofluids for oil well drilling applications; isolation and application of nanocellulosic materials; nanomaterial synthesis using top-down and bottom-up approaches, nanocoatings using geopolymers, and waste-water treatment using bio-sorbents. He has been the principal investigator for many government funded research projects such as the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) entitled “New Malaysian Green Nano fluid for drilling at high temperature and pressure, YUTP grant on “Biopolymer blend of Poly (lactic acid) and Poly (hydroxybutyrate co- valerate) based nano-biocomposites reinforced with nanocrystalline cellulose with potential application in packaging and Graphene Oxide Additives in Water Based Drilling Fluid for Enhanced Performance of Fluid Loss Control again funded by YUTP.

Dr. Imran Khan is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman. Formerly, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Process and Product Applied Thermodynamics (PATh), in the associated laboratory CICECO (Center for Research in Ceramics & Composite Materials), Dept. of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, Portugal. His areas of research include solution chemistry, the thermophysical behavior of pure liquids and liquid mixtures with ionic liquids, surfactant and polymers, and extraction and separation using Ionic liquids. Dr. Khan has worked as a visiting scientist for three months in the Department of Chemistry, at the University of Delhi, India where he studied the effect of polymers on Ionic liquid solutions funded by FCT Portugal to expand collaboration between India and Portugal. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, from 2011 to 2013, he worked on the effect of fillers on pressure sensitive adhesives and published many research articles.

Dr Sami-ullah Rather is currently working as an associate professor at Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, King Abdul-Aziz University, Saudi Arabia. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2008 from School of Semiconductor and Chemical Engineering, Chonbuk National University, South Korea. He then joined as a postdoctoral research associate at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), South Korea, Pennsylvania State University, USA and Oklahoma University, USA. For the last 17 years, he has been involved in hydrogen storage studies of nanocrystalline metal and metal-CNT composites; complex metal hydrides and their composites for hydrogen storage applications; hydrogen and CO2 trapping in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and catalyst/MOFs composites; CNT functionalization and applications; ferrites and their composites synthesis and applications. He has more than 47 publications in high impact factor international journals. Furthermore, he has been a reviewer for more than 15 international journals including the Journal of Physical Chemistry, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Journal of Nanomaterials etc. His current research interests are focused on the development of Novel metallic organic frameworks (MOFs) for CO2 capture; synthesis, characterization, and energy storage of nanomaterials, highly porous materials, and composites; application of ferrites.