Kumar Varoon Agrawal prospects advanced purification processes

Kumar Varoon Agrawal © 2020 EPFL - Summer series: science as a vocation. Kumar Varoon Agrawal, a tenure-track assistant professor who holds the Gaznat Chair for Advanced Separations at EPFL Valais-Wallis, is developing advanced membranes for the molecular separation of industrial product streams, mainly for CO₂ capture. Sometimes a simple nudge is all we need to find our true calling. For Agrawal, the nudge came from a college professor. "I was in the first year of my Bachelor's degree at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, and during an introductory course in chemical engineering, my professor said 'There's nothing in this world that cannot be solved scientifically by chemical engineering. No matter the medium - be it air, water, electronics or even space -if you understand the principles of this branch, you can be involved in an infinite number of things and solve all kinds of problems'." That prospect was enough to spark Agrawal's love affair with chemical engineering. However, his earlier decision to embark on a career in engineering came as no surprise. "I've always enjoyed tinkering and exploring how things work.