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CPPM special issue in honor of Professor Faïçal Larachi

• Safia Hamoudi

  Prof. Larachi was born in Algiers, Algeria in 1962. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Algiers University of Science and Technology in 1987 where he was the best BSc student. Being the recipient of a Top-Nationwide Doctoral Scholarship from the Algerian/France governments, he moved to Nancy (France) where he prepared a Master of Science equivalent and a Doctoral Degree of Chemical Engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine in 1988 and 1991, respectively. One year later, Faïçal’s journey in Canada began with postdoctoral and research associate positions under the supervision of Prof. Jamal Chaouki at the department of Chemical Engineering of École Polytechnique Montreal. Already at that time, the quality and intensity of his scientific production augured an exceptional career. Indeed, in 1995, Faïçal started his extremely prolific and broad academic career as an assistant professor at the department of Chemical Engineering at Université Laval. His research focused among other things on fluid dynamics and mass transfer in multiphase reactors as well as environmental catalysis. Subsequently, he broadened his research scope to the development of novel technologies for carbon dioxide capture & sequestration, process intensification, hydrometallurgy as well as metallurgical wastes and biomass valorization. Faïçal has been promoted to the rank of an associate professor in 2000, then he has been a full professor since 2004 still at ULaval. From 2005 to 2019, he was the recipient of the prestigious and very competitive Tier I Canada Research Chair. Within the framework of this chair, his research interests focused on green processes for cleaner & sustainable energy. Besides, Faïçal had the opportunity to be a visiting professor at Washington University (USA), École centrale de Lille (France) and ENSIACET, Toulouse (France). Also, he spent sabbatical stays at Total and IFP Energies Nouvelles (France) as well as at Mineral Research Consortium (Québec, Canada). Over the course of his successful career, he also served as director of the Center of Research on Interface Properties and Catalysis. Presently, Faïçal is the interim head of the department of Chemical Engineering at Université Laval. Prof. Larachi is imbued with a collaborative spirit as clearly demonstrated by his numerous collaborations with colleagues in his department, other departments at ULaval (Chemistry, Mineral Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, Soils & Agri-Food Engineering) as well as many other colleagues across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Prof. Larachi is member of several research centers, namely Centre in Green Chemistry & Catalysis; Quebec Water Research Centre; E4M – Centre de recherche sur la géologie et l’ingénierie des ressources minérales; and Centre for Innovation and Research on Carbon Utilization in Industrial Technologies. When it comes to the training of highly qualified personnel, Faïçal has always cultivated a spirit of curiosity, rigor, and excellence within his research team. With great professionalism and commitment, he has amazingly supervised 37 postdoctoral fellows as well as 56 doctoral and master’s students. Most of them have become professors, senior scientists, and talented engineers in Canada and abroad. In view of his outstanding research performances, his lecturing excellence and above all his status of a hard and versatile worker, Dr. Larachi received much recognition and honours. He was the recipient of the prestigious Tier I Canada Research Chair (2005-2019). He received the Teaching Summa Award (1999) and the Research Summa Award (2012) from the Faculty of Sciences and Engineering of Laval University, in addition of being crowned several times by the Star Professor Award of the department of Chemical Engineering of Laval University.

  Faïçal’s professional affiliations encompassed the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering, the American Chemical Society, The North American Association of Chemical Engineers, and the Algerian Society of Chemical Engineering. During several years, Faïçal was an associate editor or active member of editorial advisory board of several chemical engineering journals, namely: The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering; Chemical Engineering & Processing-Process Intensification; and Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Presently, he is member of the editorial advisory board of the journal ACS-Engineering Au and Indian Chemical Engineer. Prof. Larachi’s commitment to the Chemical Engineering community is illustrated by his indefatigable involvement in scientific and organizing committees of countless conferences including International Symposium on CAtalysis in MUltiphase Reactors (CAMURE), Gas Liquid Solid (GLS), International Symposium on Chemical Reaction Engineering (ISCRE). He also served in the scientific and evaluation committees of numerous national and foreign research institutions and funding organisations including NSERC, FRQNT, CRAPC (Algeria), and so many others. During these intense decades at the department of chemical engineering of ULaval, Faïçal has obtained numerous research individual and collaborative grants from the Canadian federal and the provincial funding organisms encompassing among others NSERC, FRQNT, CFI, MITACS, CRIBIQ as well as from foreign funding organisms such as Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France). He also received research funds from the industrial sector such as BP Products North America Inc., Enerkem Technologies, Royal Nickel Corporation, Centre de recherche minérale (COREM), Total, and many other companies. All this clearly shows Prof. Larachi’s exceptional stature, excellence and willing to leave his mark not only in the academic world but also in extra-academic and industrial realms. Faïçal’s outstanding career resulted in the publication of 440 authored and co-authored peer reviewed articles in renowned and high impact journals. These papers have been cited 11856 times allowing Faïçal to register an h-index of 57 which is exceptional within the engineering community. He also participated the edition of 3 books, published 6 book chapters and piloted 18 journal special issues. In addition, Faïçal delivered more than 500 conference presentations and posters across the globe. We can only be amazingly impressed by the broadness of Prof. Larachi’s scientific culture and research topics as clearly demonstrated by all these tremendous research contributions. Being the first Ph.D. student supervised by Prof. Larachi, I can testify to his great and vast scientific culture, his rigor, his encouragement to always move forward, his great availability to help and above all, his great humility. On behalf of all the colleagues, students and postdocs who had the honor and pleasure of meeting the professor, we are glad and honoured to dedicate this Chemical Product & Process Modeling special issue to Prof. Faïçal Larachi, and to his remarkable contribution to chemical engineering.