Prof. Vishal Agarwal

Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Kanpur

E-mail: vagarwal[at]iitk.ac.in

 

 

 

 

 

Brief Bio-sketch:

Dr. Vishal Agarwal is presently working as an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. Previously, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Horia Metiu at University of California, Santa Barbara. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay and an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Panjab University, Chandigarh. His research on cellulose pyrolysis was highlighted in North American Clean Energy and BioDigest. He has also been awarded Best Masters Research Thesis Award for his research efforts on reactive distillation.

 

RATES OF ADSORPTION AND DESORPTION: ENTROPIC CONTRIBUTIONS AND ERRORS DUE TO MEAN-FIELD APPROXIMATIONS

 

Adsorption and desorption are processes of interest to surface science and catalysis. In this talk, I will present simulations whose purpose is to examine how the rates of adsorption and desorption depend on the number of particles adsorbed per unit area (the coverage). Particularly, I will talk about the manner in which the activation entropy affects the adsorption and desorption rate coefficients and also in the validity of the transition state theory and of several mean-field approximations.