Natalia Semagina

Area of Study / Keywords

Reaction Engineering and Catalysis Energy Natural Gas Hydrogen

About

Natalia Semagina obtained her undergraduate degree in biotechnology and Ph.D. degree in chemical kinetics and catalysis from Tver State Technical University in Russia. After several years of service as a senior lecturer and researcher at the same university, she worked as a research associate in the Group of Catalytic Reaction Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). In 2008, she joined the University of Alberta, where she now holds the position of Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. 

Natalia was the Chair of the Catalysis Division of the Chemical Institute of Canada (2020-2022) and Director of the Institute for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta (2020-2025). She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Catalysis Foundation.

Research

Research area: experimental heterogeneous catalysis.

Our group develops solid catalytic materials and studies heterogeneous catalytic reactions, pursuing three goals:

• understand the reaction mechanism to understand further how to design more efficient catalysts;
• reduce or avoid the use of scarce and expensive components while maintaining or even improving the overall process efficiency;
• apply the acquired knowledge to existing and emerging chemical engineering processes in energy and environmental sectors.

Current projects: 

• production of turquoise hydrogen and carbon nanotubes via catalytic natural gas pyrolysis; 
• bio-oil co-processing with bitumen; 
• process intensification using inductive heating.

Past projects and expertise: 

• mitigation of natural gas emissions via catalytic combustion; 
• acidic water electrolysis; 
• oxidative and dry methane reforming;
• waste-to-value added products; 
• bitumen upgrading; 
• hydrodesulfurization, hydrogenations and ring opening in fuel upgrading; 
• zeolite-catalyzed dimethyl ether carbonylation; 
• three-phase hydrogenations for fine chemical synthesis; 
• allylic alkylation for environmental diagnosis; 
• ultrasound-assisted solid-liquid extraction.

Link to publications

CH E 343 - Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics of non-ideal gases and liquids; vapour-liquid equilibrium, thermodynamics of chemical processes and multicomponent systems. Prerequisite: CH E 243. Corequisite: CME 265.

Browse more courses taught by Natalia Semagina