Eric G. Eddings, University of Utah professor and chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Fellow is AIChE’s highest grade of membership and is achieved only through election by the AIChE Board of Directors.
AIChE is the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals and has more than 60,000 members from more than 110 countries. Of its membership, less than 2% reach the grade of Fellow.
Eddings earned both a bachelor’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Utah, both in chemical engineering, and he has a breadth of experience in both industry and academia.
He has worked as a chemist, senior engineer, manager, and vice president of development for companies including Sperry-Univac Corp., Unisys Corp., and Reaction Engineering International. From 2011 to 2021, he has was a partner of Salt Lake City-based Amaron Energy, a research and development startup focused on clean, renewable technologies through next-generation pyrolysis of biomass. For more than 20 years, he has also been a consultant, addressing environmental and operational issues for a variety of combustion-related industries, including work with utility and industrial boilers, copper smelters, cement kilns, waste incinerators, steel-making processes, and chemical process heaters.
Eddings first joined the U as a research assistant professor in 1998 in the then Department of Chemical and Fuels Engineering (now Department of Chemical Engineering). He was named associate professor in chemical engineering in 2001 and was associate director of the U’s Institute for Clean and Secure Energy from 2011 to 2019. He was appointed professor in 2009 and chair of the department in 2019. He also served as associate dean for research in the U’s College of Engineering from 2011 to 2019.
He has received the Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Honor Award, the Outstanding Instructor for the U’s chemical engineering department, the Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Engineering, and was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of Miskolc in Hungary.
Eddings’ research ranges from fundamental lab-scale investigations through pilot-scale process evaluation of energy-related technologies. His recent research includes: the use of coal to produce carbon fiber, carbon quantum dots and other high-value carbon products; upgrading renewable biomass materials for use in co-combustion with coal, and conversion of waste plastics to high-value products.