Guiding top-flight program into new century

Milorad P. Dudukovic, Ph.D., works to develop key partnerships with life sciences

Abdenour Kemoun, Ph.D. (right), research associate in the University's Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory, discusses the computer-controlled calibration device he constructed for bubble column reactors with Mike Dudukovic (center) and graduate student Shantanu Roy. Dudukovic is a leading figure in multiphase reactor research.

Dedicated, innovative, caring, inspiring, collaborative, loyal. These are the terms that colleagues and students use when speaking of Milorad "Mike" P. Dudukovic, Ph.D., the Laura and William Jens Professor of Environmental Engineering and chair and professor of chemical engineering.

"Flexible," however, is arguably the single best word to describe Dudukovic's talents and his approach in guiding a top-flight chemical engineering department into the new century.

His flexibility was apparent when he first arrived here in the summer of 1974. His doctoral thesis at the Illinois Institute of Technology was in biomedical engineering: He analyzed and modeled transport of tracers such as dye and radioactive tags in the bodies of experimental animals and in humans. When he came to Washington University, Dudukovic was excited about the prospects of collaborating with School of Medicine researchers. Almost immediately, however, his department chair called him in and steered him elsewhere.

"The chairman at the time said that the department was losing its identity as a traditional chemical engineering department," Dudukovic recalled in his comfortable Urbauer Hall office. He speaks in a deep, pleasant, eastern-European accent that is at once strong and kind. "The chair wanted me to concentrate on reaction engineering, and I applied myself very hard to that, because that is the core of chemical engineering."

Reaction engineering involves understanding how chemical reactions happen, at what speed and rate they happen, the analysis of molecular change from one form to another in various environments, and determining what kind of equipment to use to conduct those reactions.

Heat plays a major role in chemical reactions, as does the phase of materials. More than 90 percent of processing involves more than one phase -- gas and liquid reactant materials interacting with a solid catalyst, for instance. Thus, reaction engineering employs complex technology and marries chemical kinetics -- the study of reaction rates -- to fluid flow, heat, and mass transfer models to make vital industrial processes work smoothly and efficiently.

Transforming materials

Dudukovic became director of the University's Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory (CREL) in 1974 and still holds that title today. In 1974, CREL had three local collaborative sponsors; since then, through Dudukovic's initiative, persistence and drive, the CREL Consortium has grown to more than 20 basic collaborators spanning the globe.

Forty-one industrial CREL sponsors from 24 companies attended the CREL annual meeting this past fall to participate in lectures, poster presentations and discussions of future research directions. Among the attendees were partners from France, England, Norway and South Africa, as well as representatives of Monsanto Co. (one of the three original sponsors), Du Pont, Conoco Inc., ExxonMobil Corp. and Bayer Inc.

The consortium draws such wide support in large part because Dudukovic is a leading figure in multiphase reactors, extremely complex systems used by the petrochemical and chemical industries. He has pioneered the use of computer-aided radioactive particle tracking (CARPT) and has combined it with computer-assisted tomography (CAT) in his research. These techniques in tandem are not in use at any other reaction engineering laboratory in the world. In combination, CAT and CARPT allow a non-invasive determination of the flow pattern for different types of multiphase reactors.

The Dudukovics -- Judy, Mike, Nicole and Aleksandra.

"By choosing a proper type of multiphase reactor for each process, we can eliminate pollution at the source," Dudukovic explained.

Dudukovic has been active in environmental studies of nitrogen oxide abatement, oxidation of organics in water, and process safety and waste minimization through reactor redesign. In 1994, he was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE); he also received the institute's R.H. Wilhelm Award that year for his pioneering research contributions. He has been elected Professor of the Year here an amazing five times and also won the Burlington Northern Foundation Teaching Award. Most recently, in 1999, he received the Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the Council for Chemical Research for "outstanding contributions to the progress of research in chemistry and chemical engineering achieved through mutually beneficial interactions among universities, government laboratories and the private sector."

Dudukovic graduated first in his class from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1967. His father was a professor of electrical engineering at the university; his mother holds degrees in mathematics. Dudukovic grew up in Tito's Yugoslavia in the 1960s, which at the time was not the worst place to be in eastern Europe.

"The educational system then was good," he recalled. "It was merit-based; with good grades you could go to any university and study in any field. During my time in Yugoslavia, the standard of living was improving, and we had freedom to travel, unlike most Eastern Block countries. I made trips to England, Germany and Italy.

"I have family and friends in Yugoslavia," he went on. "Few of us had any inkling that the disintegration of the country was going to happen."

The past two years especially have been difficult for Dudukovic, who did not file for U.S. citizenship until 1991.

"I never wanted to renounce the Yugoslavia that had been good to me," he explained. "I felt that there was no need to renounce my native country for my new one -- until everything broke up. Then the decision was easy. I felt so fortunate to have the United States.

"Last spring was one of the hardest times of my life. It was very sad seeing friends and family exposed to the chaos and destruction. But I predicted that the bombing would do nothing. Not only did it not get rid of the bad guys, they've become even more entrenched. ... I think that openness (and) exchanges bring down regimes like Milosevich's. They can't fight that."

Dudukovic came to Chicago in 1968 on a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). He completed master's and doctoral degrees in record time, just three and a half years. At IIT, he met and married Judith Ann Reiff, a native of suburban Berwyn, Ill., and now a French teacher at Mehlville High School in suburban St. Louis. The Dudukovics have two daughters, Aleksandra, who is about to complete a master's degree in landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and Nicole, a psychology major at Stanford University.

Dudukovic believes the future of his department, which is very strong in reaction, environmental and materials engineering, will depend on that Dudukovic virtue -- flexibility.

"We have an excellent faculty, but all of the fields that we're in are related more to what is perceived as mature technologies," he said. "We simply have to change, become more synergistic. We are asking: How can our talents become married to those of other areas so that the results will be more than just the sum of the two parts? One key area is in the life sciences."

Developing new compounds

This sort of medical application of chemical engineering harkens Dudukovic back to his doctoral degree in tracer analysis. Magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography eliminated the need to trace dye in an organism, but those advances did not make his methodology obsolete. He still uses it as a flaw-mapping technique for faulty chemical reactors.

"That approach has served me well, and I think that as our department advances into this century, we will be looking for partnership opportunities to share our know-how in developing the most efficient processes," Dudukovic said.