ChE Ph.D. Student Muhammad Ali Shah Wins Kokes Award from North American Catalysis Society
Content
Ph.D. Candidate Muhammad Ali Shah of the UMass Amherst Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department has received a Richard J. Kokes Travel Award from the North American Catalysis Society (NACS). The Kokes award funded Shah’s attendance at the 29th NACS Meeting (NAM29) in Atlanta, Georgia, in June. Beyond attendance at the meeting, the award enabled Shah to present his research at NAM29 on a faster, safer, more effective method for synthesizing zeolites, which represent a group of microporous, crystalline minerals formed from aluminosilicate and commonly utilized as commercial adsorbents and catalysts.
According to the NAM29 website, it was the premier scientific event in the field of catalysis research and development in 2025 and featured technological challenges, breakthrough discoveries, and state-of-the-art academic and industrial research.
Shah, who does his research in the lab of Professor Wei Fan of the ChE Department, has already published two papers in leading academic journals of the American Chemical Society, ACS Crystal Growth and Design and ACS Chemistry of Materials. He was the first author on the first and the second author on the second one. Currently, he is writing his 3rd manuscript aimed at explaining the zeolite crystallization steps under a fluoride medium.
Shah also worked for five years as a process engineer at the Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited in Karachi, Pakistan.
The backstory to Shah’s research is that zeolite synthesis is typically conducted either under basic conditions or in neutral fluoride media using hydrofluoric acid. While using basic conditions generally results in faster zeolite crystallization, this process also increases the likelihood of framework defects and crystal intergrowths. In contrast, synthesis in neutral fluoride media tends to produce fewer defects. However, this method often requires significantly longer crystallization times and involves handling dangerous hydrofluoric acid.
As Shah writes, “In the present study, we pursue the best of both synthesis conditions – rapid syntheses with controllable defect concentrations – by using various amounts of ammonium fluoride as [a safe] alternative to hydrofluoric acid.”
According to Shah, “We have found that the crystallization times…decrease substantially with increasing ammonium-fluoride concentration. Additionally, increasing ammonium-fluoride concentration in the synthesis mixtures decreases the defect densities of siliceous zeolites. Combining basic and fluoride-media synthesis could be advantageous for faster zeolite production and improved control over the structural properties of various zeolite structures.”
Shah explains that the significance of his research lies in the fact that “by disentangling fluoride concentration and pH using ammonium fluoride as a safer alternative, we found that the crystallization rate can be significantly improved with fewer defects.”
In addition, Shah earned first place in the UMass Amherst College of Engineering Research Symposium poster competition held in March of 2025. He has also been awarded two Eldridge teaching-assistant awards from the ChE department for his performance.
Shah earned his B.Sc. Degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan.
In addition to Shah, ChE Ph.D. students SeungBo Hong and Dipti Bhave (covered elsewhere in separate articles), also won Kokes Travel Awards. ChE Ph.D. candidate R. Morgan Whitfield III received an honorable mention. (August 2025)