Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University
Dr. Elimelech is recognized for his pioneering developments of energy-efficient, sustainable membrane-based technologies for desalination and the management of brines and industrial wastewaters. He is a leading international authority who has transformed the field of environmental engineering, particularly in these areas.
Elimelech’s research and development is in the application of membrane processes including forward osmosis or FO (for desalination and water reuse), high-pressure reverse osmosis or HPRO (for brine concentration and management), and low-salt-rejection reverse osmosis or LSRRO (for brine management and minimal- and zero-liquid discharge applications).
HPRO and LSRRO are expected to revolutionize low-energy, low-cost brine management. Gradiant, a US company specializing in brine management (minimum- and zero-liquid discharge, MLD/ZLD), is commercializing a variant of the LSRRO and FO technologies, which is called Counter Flow RO (CFRO). The current market of brine management is estimated at $11.5B.
Elimelech’s innovative work on forward osmosis (FO) profoundly impacted the desalination and water industry. He was a co-founder of Oasys Water, a company which commercialized the ammonia-carbon dioxide FO desalination technology. More than 13 new FO start-up companies have been formed following his pioneering FO research.
In a recent breakthrough, Elimelech showed that the solution-diffusion model, which has been used to describe water transport in reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for more than 50 years, is fundamentally flawed and he proposed an alternative mechanism and theory for water transport consistent with experimental observations. This finding has direct implications for the design of high-performance desalination membranes.
Elimelech earned his BS and MS degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1989. In his first appointment, Elimelech served as professor and vice chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. He joined Yale in 1998 as director and founder of the university’s Environmental Engineering Program as well as Llewellyn West Jones Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. In 2005, he was named Roberto C. Goizueta Professor and became chair of Yale’s Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department.
In 2021, he was appointed Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, the university’s highest academic rank; the first engineering professor at Yale to earn this distinction.
His major awards and honors include the International Water Association (IWA) Membrane Technology Award (2023); Honorary Doctorate, Ben-Gurion University, Israel (2023); Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (2023); Eni Prize for ‘Protection of the Environment’ — often considered the Nobel Prize in energy/environment — (2015); The Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award and Lecture, American Society of Civil Engineers (2011); The American Institute of Chemical Engineers Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering (2008); and The Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize, National Water Research Institute (2005).
Professor Elimelech is an elected member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2022); Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (2021); Chinese Academy of Engineering (2017); Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (2007); and United States National Academy of Engineering (2006).