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American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF) Award

2019 – Russ College of Engineering, Ohio University

Marvan E. and Ann D. White Research Award

Innovation Strategy Award

Stocker Faculty Enrichment Award

Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher

Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher Award

Outstanding International Student

Bangladesh Student Association, Nevada : Secretary

Differential Fee Committee, College of Engineering, UNR : Graduate Representative

American Chemical Society : Senior Member

American Institute of Chemical Engineers : Senior Member

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Society : Member 

Techno-economic assessment of superactivated hydrochar production by KOH impregnation compared to direct chemical activation

Effects of process liquid recirculation on material properties of hydrochar and corresponding adsorption of cationic dye

Towards solvothermal upcycling of mixed plastic wastes: Depolymerization pathways of waste plastics in sub- and supercritical toluene

CHE 4151

CHE 4284/5292

CHE 3103

CHE 3170

Dr. Reza earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Nevada, Reno. He was appointed as research scientist in Liebniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering in Potsdam, Germany. 

Following stints at University of Nevada, Reno and Ohio University, Dr. Reza came to Florida Tech in August 2019. 

His research, which involves wastes to biofuels and materials, has been funded by National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, American Chemical Society, and other state and federal agencies. 

It falls into three main categories: 

Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC): In this process, wet biomass (e.g., garbage, food waste, animal waste, sewage sludge, mixed plastics) are treated at high temperature and high pressure. Water being a reaction medium for HTC is beneficial as the wet biomass could be utilized without expensive drying. Depending on process conditions and catalysts, HTC process yields solid fuel (hydrochar), liquid fuel (biocrude) and renewable natural gas (methane). Solid hydrochar could also be activated for energy storage and use to adsorb contaminants from water. 

Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES): This is a new class of solvents targeted for specific applications including but not limited to BTX from naphtha, platform chemicals from HTC process water, clean-up oil spills, and wastewater treatment from power plants. 

Pyrolysis and Torrefaction: Dry biomass could be converted to biochar, solid fuel or liquid biocrude at high temperature in inert atmosphere. Torrefaction occurs at 200-350 C, where volatile materials from biomass leaves an energy dense solid fuel. Meanwhile, pyrolysis occurs at 350-650 C, where a carbon-rich porous biochar formed. Biochar can be used as carbon sequestration, soil amendment, and slow-release fertilizer.

The Reza research group promotes diversity and practices laboratory safety.

Biomass Conversion

Waste Valorization

Waste to Energy

Biomaterials

Biofuels

Bangla

English

Hindi

Faculty Profile

Google Scholar Citations

ResearchGate Citations

Reza Research Group Website

Florida Tech’s Dr. Toufiq Reza: Turning ‘Waste’ into ‘Resources’ and How You Can Help

From septic to sustainable: A potential new source of fertilizer

Florida Tech’s Toufiq Reza Receives Grant to Improve Millions of Lives in Bangladesh

Magnetisable particles, process for their preparation and their use

Method and device for producing biogas

Method for wet torrefaction of a biomass

florida-tech-kennedy-space-center-to-study-waste-treatment-in-space

Research Will Center on Sustainable Waste-to-Energy Conversion Methods

Assistant Professor | Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and Sciences

  Associate professor of chemical engineering Toufiq Reza has spent years researching sustainable waste conversion techniques on Earth. When Florida Tech offered him a sabbatical, he took the chance to learn what that conversion process looks like in outer space while further strengthening the university’s already deep ties to NASA. 

In Fall 2023, Reza became the first professor to leverage school funding to spend a semester at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He worked with Annie Meier, who leads a team developing ways to convert astronaut-generated trash into fuel during missions, known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).

“I wanted to do something different that I haven’t done. I have been doing research in my field; I know who the players are,” Reza said.” I could have easily gone to a research lab at another university and continued my research. But I wanted to learn something new.”  His sabbatical prompted a new partnership between NASA Kennedy and Florida Tech.

This summer, they signed an annex to their existing Space Act Agreement which will allow Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and the university to conduct joint research regarding logistical waste treatment and ISRU.

“At NASA, we want researchers who are doing something that could help us, that could be synergistic, and to not reinvent the wheel,” said Jose Nuñez, university partnerships and small sat capabilities manager at NASA Kennedy. “The goal is to find professors who can benefit the agency in an area that needs more research.”

As part of the agreement, KSC will share raw materials, waste simulant samples and information such as gas composition data with Florida Tech. In return, the university will analyze and share findings, such as what useful products can be taken from trash-to-gas waste for use as plant nutrients, and evaluate value-added applications.

“I will encourage students to work on some of their technologies, test them in our lab and vice versa. This is a massive thing,” Reza said. “We can learn from each other to help each other.”  Already, Reza’s students have visited Meier’s lab, and Meier and her KSC team came to Florida Tech to present her research and visit the university’s research facilities.

Meier’s goals are similar to Reza’s: Both researchers want to find sustainable ways to convert trash and waste into energy, materials and chemicals. However, the methods aren’t completely transferrable between the two different environments of Earth and space. On Earth, Reza explained, waste can be burned or stored in a landfill. Neither of those options are viable in space.

“You cannot dig up the moon soil and start burying. There is no oxygen or air to actually burn it…there is no water,” Reza explained.  Currently, astronaut waste, such as food packaging, clothing, hygiene items and uneaten food, is launched back towards Earth and incinerates on the way there. However, Meier is working to advance waste mitigation technology, which Reza got to see up close. One of her projects, the Orbital Syngas/Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR), mixes oxygen, heat and trash in a reactor, which burns the trash and collects the gas it creates.

Over the course of the semester, Reza assisted in KSC’s Applied Chemistry Lab, where Meier’s research took place. He offered both expertise and extra hands, from helping measure samples to reading through literature. He also took note of innovative technology for potential new research ideas, such as potentially developing a way of protecting metal coatings in space using the tools he learned.

Meier’s waste conversion technology is built for a space environment, but Reza said it is unlikely that her complete systems could be used for waste conversion on Earth. Just as water and oxygen are limited resources in space but are plentiful on Earth, vacuums are plentiful resources in space but are expensive to create back home. However, that doesn’t stop the researchers from seeking inspiration through the new partnership.

“We can learn from them and then take a part of their technology and integrate it with ours to make our technology more sustainable and vice versa,” Reza said. “They can improve their technology by utilizing part of our technology as well.  As Meier said, “I wanted to learn on the terrestrial side how we can infuse some of our technology, and he wanted to learn from us to grow into the space sector, so it was a really cool match.”


Florida Tech, Kennedy Space Center to Study Waste Treatment in Space

solving-sargassum-florida-tech-researchers-exploring-ways-to-make-seaweed-useful-

Sargassum, a type of large brown seaweed, has been in the news lately, with a massive blob that’s visible from space and threatening ocean life. University research funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could address the issue, while also helping solve another problem in our water.

 Toufiq Reza, an assistant professor of chemical engineering in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and Sciences, along with research students Cadianne Chambers, Swarna Saha, Savannah Grimes and Josh Calhoun, were part of the research paper, “Physical and morphological alteration of Sargassum‐derived ultraporous superactivated hydrochar with remarkable cationic dye adsorption.” The paper was published in the May edition of Springer Nature’s Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery journal.

 The paper is part of a three-year, nearly $400,000 EPA grant to examine different uses of sargassum. It explains that the team can produce biochar from sargassum that can filter water. Though the team has tested model dye in this paper, they plan to extend their research for other applications including harmful algal bloom remediation and nutrient recovery in the future.

While sargassum has been around for centuries (Christopher Columbus is credited with the first written account after he encountered it in 1492), and you’ve probably seen bits of brownish seaweed on the beach – it sometimes smells like rotten eggs – the quantities in the ocean and washing up on shores are a more recent phenomenon. There are multiple reasons behind the increased amount of sargassum, including global warming that intensifies sargassum production and nutrient runoff making its way to ocean water and overfertilizing the seaweed growth.
More sargassum is expected to show up on Florida shores in the future, inspiring the team to explore more positive uses of the abundant seaweed.

 “In the next couple of years, we’ll be seeing much more sargassum coming into our way. It’s not a common practice to utilize sargassum,” Reza said. “We go to a beach and then we see a little bit of sargassum just dried out. That doesn’t bother us that much, but when it started to come as a foot-tall sargassum wave, that’s where it gets more alarming.”  Sargassum in the lab is labor intensive. Because it contains salt from the ocean, it is washed with tap water first, then put in a freezer for preservation. Next, it goes through hydrothermal carbonization, a thermochemical process that uses heat and pressure to convert biomass and organic waste (such as the sargassum being used) into solid hydrochar. Lastly, the solid char goes through pyrolysis, where it is heated in a high-temperature, oxygen-free chamber into a biochar that is used to filter water.

For Swarna Saha, a first-year doctoral student, her goal as a researcher is to identify an environmental problem and come up with a sustainable solution. Having grown up in Bangladesh around textile factories that generate dyes that pollute the surface water, she was inspired to work on solutions that improved water quality with biochar.

“I came in the project when we were experimenting on dye adsorption and saw how a tiny amount of biochar changes the color of the water,” she said. “For me, seeing the results made me the happiest. When we saw that our biochar is effective, that is the biggest achievement for me. That made me happy.” Cadianne Chambers, a second-year doctoral researcher, was motivated by her home country of Jamaica and its massive issues with sargassum. Chambers has heard accounts of fishermen unable to go out to sea because of the sargassum buildup. A popular destination for summer vacation, Jamaica is facing serious environmental and economic problems with waves of sargassum.

“A team in Jamaica saw that article and they reached out to us, and they’re trying to cultivate sargassum. They want us to teach them how to make export-quality hydrochar and biochar, which could help solve their environmental problem and generate revenues,” Chambers said. “So, everything is just connecting nicely and I’m hoping to continue our collaboration with them. If it’s something that I can go home and put my PhD research to work and help the community, that would be really satisfying.” Looking to know more about sargassum and the ground-breaking research taking place at Florida Tech? Then let us help with your coverage and questions. 

Toufiq Reza is an assistant professor in the biomedical and chemical engineering and sciences department at Florida Tech. He's available to speak with media about this topic - simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.


Solving sargassum: Florida Tech researchers exploring ways to make seaweed useful 

The organic fraction of municipal solid wastes largely containing food wastes is a huge economic and environmental liability for the planet. In this lecture, up-cycling organic fraction of municipal solid wastes into energy and materials will be introduced and challenges of individual applications will be discussed.    

Dr. Toufiq Reza is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering and Sciences of Florida Institute of Technology. He leads the Biofuels Research Lab at Florida Tech with a primary research interest in thermochemical conversions of biomass and biowastes. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Sugarbush Foundation. Six Ph.D. students and five undergraduate students, including five students from under-represented groups, are involved in his research group.

Hosted by the Florida Tech Alumni Association.

Find upcoming Lunch & Learn Lectures: https://www.fit.edu/alumni/events/

Converting Waste to Energy and Sustainable Materials | Lunch &amp; Learn Lecture

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