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Faculty & Staff

Yian Chen

Dr. Yian Chen joined KGI in August 2024 as an assistant professor in the Bioprocessing Center. Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Renewable Resources and Enabling Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Her research focused on membrane applications in biomass conversion, downstream bioprocessing, waste-to-energy, resources recovery and waste valorization, and decarbonization. She received the Director鈥檚 Award, Key Contributor Award, and Employee of the Month for her exceptional performance. Prior to joining NREL, she earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, where her research focused on developing and synthesizing high-performance membranes for water desalination and purification. Beyond material science, she also had direct experience in the deployment of membrane technologies in real-world applications, including process scale-up for commercial scale membrane fabrication, and wellhead water and emerging contamination treatment for producing safe drinking water for remote and disadvantaged communities. Her Ph.D. dissertation received the First Place Nation Academic Achievement Award from the American Water Works Association (AWWA).

  1. Patrick O. Saboe, Yudong Li, Emily G. Tomashek, Eric C. D. Tan, Xiaowen Chen, Louis Chirban, Yian Chen, Dan Schell, Eric M. Karp, Gregg T. Beckham*, Solid-liquid separation of lignocellulosic sugars from biomass by rotating ceramic disc filtration, Green Chemistry, (2024). (Highlighted as 鈥淗OT鈥� by the Journal Editors)
  2. Yian Chen, Patrick O. Saboe, Jacob S. Kruger, Eric CD Tan, Jacob W. Dempsey, Jeffrey G. Linger, Violeta S脿nchez i Nogu茅, Eric M. Karp, and Gregg T. Beckham*. Liquid鈥搇iquid extraction for in situ carboxylic acid recovery via continuous membrane-based emulsion separations, Green Chemistry 26, no. 17 (2024): 9398-9414.
  3. Yian Chen, Yoram Cohen*, RO membrane with a surface tethered polymer brush layer for enhanced rejection of nitrate, boron, and arsenic, Journal of Membrane Science Letters (2023): 100062 (Short Communication)
  4. Xumeng Ge*, Yian Chen, Violeta S脿nchez i Nogu茅, Yebo Li, Volatile fatty acid recovery from arrested anaerobic digestion for production of sustainable aviation fuel: A review, Fermentation, 9 (2023) 821 (Review)
  5. Yian Chen, Yoram Cohen*, Calcium sulfate and calcium carbonate scaling of thin-film composite polyamide reverse osmosis membranes with surface-tethered polyacrylic acid chains, Membranes, 12.12 (2022): 1287
  6. Yian Chen, Soomin Kim, Yeunha Kim, Jeremy Walker, Tom Wolfe, Kelvin Coleman, Yoram Cohen*, Scale up of polyamide reverse osmosis membrane surface modification with tethered poly(acrylic acid) chains for fabrication of fouling-resistant spiral-wound elements, Desalination, (2022):115762
  7. Yian Chen, Jie Zhang, Yoram Cohen*, Fouling resistant and performance tunable ultrafiltration membranes via surface graft polymerization induced by atmospheric pressure air plasma, Separation and Purification Technology (2022): 120490
  8. Yian Chen, Soomin Kim, Yoram Cohen*, Tuning the hydraulic permeability and molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of surface nano-structured ultrafiltration membranes, Journal of Membrane Science, 629 (2021) 119180
  9. Yian Chen, Montserrat Rovira-Bru, Francesc Giralt, Yoram Cohen*, Hydraulic resistance and protein fouling resistance of a zirconia membrane with a tethered PVP layer, Water, 13(7) (2021) 951
  10. Jin Yong Choi, Tae Lee, Abdullah Aleidan, Anditya Rahardianto, Madelyn Glickfeld, Maria Kennedy, Yian Chen, Peter Haase, Carina Chen, Yoram Cohen*, On the feasibility of small communities wellhead RO treatment for nitrate removal and salinity reduction, Journal of Environmental Management, 250 (2019) 109487

Dr. Chen鈥檚 current research focuses on downstream bioprocessing separation and manufacturing science, green chemistry and engineering, sustainable materials in biomedical applications, and advanced biotechnology for the production of biofuels, biochemicals, and biopharmaceuticals.

Current research project:

Sustainable DES pulping process development

A lignin-containing waste stream is often generated during lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment. In this project, a process is developed to valorize the waste stream by recovering and fractionating lignin as a valuable byproduct and, at the same time, recycling a green solvent 鈥� deep eutectic solvent (DES). This project scope will span from functionalized polymeric material synthesis, process development and optimization, technoeconomic analysis, and life-cycle assessment to process scale-up.