Dr. George C. Frazier

Research Interests Chemical Separations. An increasingly important industrial activity is that of separating contaminants from waste streams, which motivates our work on the refinement of adsorption and ion exchange processes for removal and recovery of mixtures of heavy metals, in particular, and other contaminants from both aqueous and gaseous process waste streams. Other activities in our group include the development of process models of reactive distillation. Control of Particulate Emissions from Industrial Incinerators. Industrial solid waste streams may contain a wide variety of matter including chlorinated organics and heavy metals in various forms. Heavy metal chlorides produced from such mixtures during the combustion process present a particularly challenging flue gas clean up problem because of the relatively high vapor pressure of these compounds. Our group is investigating the mechanism of the formation of heavy metal chlorides and also experimenting with methods for rendering these noxious compounds (to a form which is more readily retained in the ash stream from the incinerator. Modeling the Growth of Plant Cells m Suspension Culture. Cells of various plant species produce a wide variety of valuable secondary products including natural insecticides, pharmaceuticals, anti-tumor agents, and pigments. Our group is engaged in an interdisciplinary program with members of the Botany Department, the objective of which is to develop a better understanding of the factors which control the growth and regulation of plant cells and their production of secondary products. The effort in our group centers on the formulation of relatively simple, structured models of the growth process, which are tested against experimental cell growth data obtained under a variety of growth media compositions and acidity levels, using Wild Carrot as a model system.

• G.C. Frazier, "A Simple Leaky Cell Growth Model for Plant Cell Aggregates," Biotechnol. and Bioengineering 33 (1989) 313-320
• C.S. Daw and G.C. Frazier, "A Quantitative Analysis of Binary Solids Segregation in Large-Particle Gas-Fluidized Beds," Powder Technology 56 (1988) 165-177
• G.W. Strandberg, T.J. Abraham, and G.C. Frazier, "Phenanthrene Degradation by Beijerinckia sp. B8/36," Biotechnol. and Bioengineering, XXVIII (1986) 142-145
• T.C. Keener, G.C. Frazier, and W. Davis, "Thermal Decomposition of Sodium Bicarbonate," Chem.Eng.Commun. 33 (1985) 93-105
• E.J. Badin and G.C. Frazier, "Sorbents for Fluidized-Bed Combustion," Environ.Sci.Technol.. 19 (1985) 894-901.