U.S.-Venezuela: Planning Visit

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In this U.S.-Venezuela planning visit supported by the Americas Program of the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Interfacial, Transport and Thermodynamic Processing Program of the Division of Chemical and Transport Systems, Ronald Neuman of Auburn University will travel to two institutions in Venezuela, the Universidad Simon Bolivar (USB) in Caracas, and the Universidad de Los Andes (ULA) in Merida. The purpose of these visits is to plan new research collaborative projects with Professor Erich A. Muller at USB and Professor Jean-Louis Salager at ULA. The proposed research projects will investigate interfacial phenomena in complex fluid (liquid/liquid) systems and reflect the complementary expertise of the collaborators involved. The collaborative project with USB will employ recent advances in molecular simulation and parallel computer processing to investigate the liquid/liquid extraction of metals from aqueous to nonpolar organic phases. The proposed project with ULA will investigate complex crude oil emulsions stabilized by solid particles to obtain fundamental knowledge that will be applied to develop new remediation and pollution cleanup methods.The proposed research has the potential for the development of an environmentally clean method to remove oil spills from coastal beaches and obtain a clean oil product that can be recycled back into petroleum refining operations. The proposed activities involve the exchange of graduate students and undergraduate students, who will thus have first-hand experience with international collaborations.