Valla, Julia

Ioulia A. Valla, beneficiary of the Eversource Energy Environmental Engineering Clinic at the UConn School of Engineering

Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Email valla@engr.uconn.edu
Phone (860) 486-0583
Mailing Address Department of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering Engineering II, Room 204 191 Auditorium Road, Unit 3222 University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269-3222
Campus Storrs
Google Scholar Link

Brief Bio

Ioulia (Julia) Valla is an Assistant  Professor in the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut. She received her PhD in the field of the development of new zeolites for the decomposition of sulfur compounds in naphtha and the production of environmental gasoline from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. She has served in a leadership role with Rive Technology, Inc. on the commercialization of a novel zeolite with ordered mesoporous structure for refinery applications. Dr. Valla’s research focuses on the modification of zeolites structure and their application in catalysis, adsorption and energy. She is the author/co-author of several papers in peer-reviewed journals, 1 book chapter and 2 patents. Dr. Valla is the recipient of the European Award “RUCADI, Recovery and Utilization of Carbon Dioxide” for her study on the role of CO2 on the reforming of natural gas for the production of methanol. Her research is sponsored by NSF, ACS/PRF and DOE and industry.

  • Modeling and simulation of process systems
  • Coal and Biomass to Poly-generation (Liquids, Chemicals, Power)
  • CO2 reduction technologies
  • Sulfur reduction in transportation fuels
  • Refinery processes
  • Hierarchical pore structure zeolites
  1. Gamliel, D.P., Karakalos, S., Valla, J.A., “Liquid phase hydrodeoxygenation of anisole, 4-ethylphenol and benzofuran using Ni, Ru and Pd supported on USY zeolite”, Applied Catalysis A: General 559, 20-29 (2018), Impact Factor 4.521
  2. Su Y., Wang, Y.,  Owoseni, O., Zhang, Y., Gamliel, D.P.,  Valla, J.V., McPherson, G.L., John, V.T., “A Bottle-around-a-Ship Method To Generate Hollow Thin-Shelled Particles Containing Encapsulated Iron Species with Application to the Environmental Decontamination of Chlorinated Compounds”, ACS applied materials & interfaces, 10, 16, (2018) 13542-13551, Impact Factor 8.097
  3. Lee, K.X., Tsilomelekis, G., Valla, J.A., “Removal of benzothiophene and dibenzothiophene from hydrocarbon fuels using CuCe mesoporous Y zeolites in the presence of aromatics”, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 234, (2018)130-142, Impact Factor 11.698
  4. Gamliel, D.P., Bollas, G.M., Valla, J.A. “Two-stage catalytic fast hydropyrolysis of biomass for the production of drop-in biofuel” Fuel 216, 160-170 (2018), Impact Factor 4.601
  5. Gamliel D.P., Baillie B.P., Augustine, E. Hall, J. Bollas, G.M., Valla, J.V. “Nickel impregnated mesoporous USY zeolites for hydrodeoxygenation of anisole” Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, in press, Impact Factor 3.615
  6. Gamliel, D.P., Wilcox, L., Valla, J.A. “The Effect of Catalyst Properties on the Conversion of Biomass via Catalytic Fast Hydropyrolysis” Energy and Fuels. 31 (2017) 679-687, Impact Factor 3.091
  7. Du, S., Gamliel, D.P., Valla, J.A., Bollas, G.M., “The Effect of ZSM-5 catalyst Support in Catalytic Pyrolysis of Biomass and Compounds Abundant in Pyrolysis Bio-oils.” Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis. 122 (2016) 7-12, Impact Factor 3.471
  8. K. X. Lee, J. A. Valla, “Investigation of metal-exchanged mesoporous Y zeolites for the adsorptive desulfurization of liquid fuels” Appl. Catal. B Environ. 201 (2017)359-369 Impact Factor: 8.328
  9. Gamliel, D.P., Bollas, G.M., Valla, J.A. “Bifunctional Ni-ZSM-5 Catalysts for the Pyrolysis and Hydropyrolysis of Biomass.” Energy Technology, 31 (1) 679-687 Impact Factor: 2.557 (invited paper & inside cover paper of the volume)
  10.  Gamliel, D.P., Cho, H.J., Fan, W., Valla, J.A. “On the effectiveness of tailored mesoporous MFI zeolites for biomass catalytic fast pyrolysis.” Applied Catalysis A: General. 522 (2016) 109-119. Impact Factor: 3.942
  11.  Du, S., Gamliel, D.P., Giotto, M.V., Valla, J.A., Bollas, G.M., “Coke formation of model compounds relevant to pyrolysis bio-oil over ZSM-5.” Applied Catalysis A: General. 513 (2016) 67-81. Impact Factor: 3.942
  12. S. Du, J. A. Valla, R. S. Parnas, G. M. Bollas, ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. (2016) 4, 2852–2860 Impact Factor: 5.267
  13.  Jain, R., Poyraz, S., Gamliel, D.P., Valla, J.A., Suib, S.L., Maric, R., “Comparative study for low temperature water-gas shift reaction on Pt/ceria catalysts: Role of different ceria supports.” Applied Catalysis A: General. 507, 2015, 1-13. Impact Factor: 3.942
  14. A Fischer, S Du, JA Valla, GM Bollas, “The effect of temperature, heating rate, and ZSM-5 catalyst on the product selectivity of the fast pyrolysis of spent coffee grounds” RSC Advances 5 (37), (2015) 29252-29261. Impact factor 3.84
  15. DP Gamliel, S Du, GM Bollas, JA Valla, “Investigation of in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis of miscanthus× giganteus using a PyGC–MS microsystem and comparison with a bench-scale spouted-bed reactor, Bioresource technology 191, (2015) 187-196. Impact factor 4.5
  16. Shoucheng Du, Yijia Sun, David P. Gamliel, Julia A. Valla, George M. Bollas, “Catalytic pyrolysis of miscanthus [1] giganteus in a spouted bed reactor”, Bioresource Technology 169 (2014) 188–197. Impact factor 4.5
  17. Kunhao Li, Julia Valla, Javier Garcia‐Martinez, “Realizing the Commercial Potential of Hierarchical Zeolites: New Opportunities in Catalytic Cracking”, ChemCatChem, 6 (1) (2014)  46-66. Impact factor 5.044 ( top 25 most accessed papers in ChemCatChem for the year of 2014)
  18. S Du, J Valla, GM Bollas, “Characteristics and origin of char and coke from fast and slow, catalytic and thermal pyrolysis of biomass and relevant model compounds” , Green Chem., 15 (2013) 3214-3229. Impact factor 6.828
  19. Javier Garcia-Martinez, Marvin Johnson, Julia Valla, Kunhao Li and Jackie Y. Ying, “Mesostructured zeolite Y-high hydrothermal stability and superior FCC catalytic performance” Catalysis Science and Technology, 2 (2012) 987-994.
  20. Athanasios G. Konstadopoulos, Jean-Christophe Hoguet, George Karagiannakis, Julia Valla, Christos Agrafiotis, “ Gas and liquid desulphurization for hydrogen production via reforming processes” International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 3(11) (2009) 4953-4962.
  21. J. A. Valla, E. Mouriki, A.A Lappas, I.A. Vasalos, “The effect of heavy aromatic sulfur compounds on sulfur in cracked naphtha” Catal. Today, 127 (2007) 92-98.
  22. J.A. Valla, A. A. Lappas, I. A. Vasalos, “Catalytic Cracking of thiophene and benzothiophene: Mechanism and Kinetics” Applied Catalysis A: General, 297 (2006) 90-101.
  23. J.A. Valla, A. A. Lappas, I. A. Vasalos, C. Kuehler, N. J. Gudde, “Feed and Process effects on the in situ reduction of sulfur in FCC gasoline” Applied Catalysis A: General, 276 (2004) 75-87.
  24. Α. Α. Lappas, J. A. Valla, I. A. Vasalos, C. Kuehler, J. Francis, P. O’ Connor, N. J. Gudde, “The effect of catalysts properties on the in situ reduction of sulfur in FCC gasoline” Applied Catalysis A: General, 262 (2004) 31-41.
  25. A. A. Lappas, J. A. Valla, I. A. Vasalos, C. W. Kuehler, J. Francis, P. O’ Connor, N.J. Gudde, “Sulfur Reduction in FCC Gasoline” Preprints Division of Petroleum Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Orlando, Florida, April 7-11, 2002.