Alexander Dudchenko

All Publications

• Optimization of Desalination Systems with Detailed Water Chemistry through Integration of Reaktoro in WaterTAP ACS ES&T ENGINEERING Akkor, I., Amusat, O. O., Vecchiarelli, P., Gounaris, C. E., Knueven, B., Dudchenko, A. V. 2026

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsestengg.5c01008

  View details for Web of Science ID 001748970600001

• Model-based economic analysis under uncertainty for PFAS treatment by granular activated carbon and ion exchange technologies. Journal of environmental management Barber, H., Sitterley, K. A., Hardikar, M., Atia, A. A., Dudchenko, A. V., Lima, F. V. 2026; 404: 129407

  Abstract

  Recent drinking water regulations have imposed remediation for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). In response, treatment facilities may be required to retrofit existing treatment schemes to treat PFAS below maximum contaminant levels (MCLs). Adsorption technologies such as granular activated carbon (GAC) and ion exchange (IX) have been demonstrated to be effective; however, there are limited techno-economic metrics available that provide guidance on technology selection and design for diverse PFAS-containing source water conditions. Process systems engineering (PSE) tools that traditionally perform these analyses are hindered by the data availability, model validity, and understanding of treatment phenomena for emerging contaminants. This work employs published data regressions, statistical models, process models, techno-economic analyses, and other process systems tools in a model-based uncertainty framework to consider the limitations of emerging contaminant research. Through this analysis framework, economic results are provided as probabilistic distributions based on the uncertainty of the models and diverse conditions that treatment facilities experience. Regressed parameter distributions and model predictive performance trends for each technology are identified based on PFAS structure and chain length. GAC systems are evaluated at consistently lower levelized costs of water (LCOWs) with less economic risk over IX systems considering uncertainty across most design conditions and PFAS species. Both technologies are evaluated to have comparable adsorbent usage intensity on a volume basis, indicative of similar sustainability.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.129407

  View details for PubMedID 41921266

• Conductivity-Driven Origin of the Limiting Current in Concentrated Electrolytes ACS ENERGY LETTERS Abdo, E. E., Hesse, S. A., Dudchenko, A. V., Arthur, R. J., Takacs, C. J., Balsara, N. P. 2026

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsenergylett.6c00220

  View details for Web of Science ID 001724667300001

• Incorporating corrosion design constraints in desalination process optimization: A case study in mechanical vapor compression DESALINATION Tucker, C. I., Amusat, O. O., Atia, A. A., Dudchenko, A., Bartholomew, T., Mauter, M. S. 2026; 621

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.desal.2025.119698

  View details for Web of Science ID 001635145900001

• Assessing the Accuracy of Property Model Predictions for Cost Optimization of Desalination Technologies ACS ES&T ENGINEERING Sakhai, S. S., Bartholomew, T. V., Dudchenko, A. V., Lima, F. V. 2026; 6 (2): 793-801

  Abstract

  Accurate modeling of seawater thermophysical and thermodynamic properties is critical for optimizing desalination processes. This study compares three seawater property models, a Reaktoro multicomponent model, the thermophysical seawater properties library from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a simplified sodium chloride model, in the context of levelized cost of water (LCOW) minimization for reverse osmosis (RO) and mechanical vapor compression systems. Process simulations and cost optimizations reveal that although all three models yield comparable LCOW and specific energy consumption (SEC) estimates under baseline conditions, deviations among their predictions increase with salinity. Relative differences in LCOW and SEC reach up to 6% and 8%, respectively. RO results show greater variability due to differences in osmotic pressure predictions, which affect pressure constraints at high recoveries. Computational performance varies substantially; specifically, Reaktoro simulations are up to 28 times slower than empirical models due to their detailed equilibrium calculations. These results suggest that empirical models offer acceptable accuracy for routine desalination process design, while Reaktoro provides advantages in scenarios requiring detailed speciation, such as scaling or pH adjustment studies. These findings underscore the importance of selecting appropriate property models based on the modeling objective of desalination applications and motivate future work integrating thermodynamic rigor with empirical efficiency.

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsestengg.5c00929

  View details for Web of Science ID 001668739000001

  View details for PubMedID 41710909

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC12910588

• Tracking Spatiotemporal Electric Potential in Batteries Using High-Resolution <i>Operando</i> X-ray Transmission Imaging JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C Abdo, E. E., Patel, V., Hesse, S. A., Dudchenko, A. V., Arthur, R. J., Takacs, C. J., Balsara, N. P. 2025

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acs.jpcc.5c05969

  View details for Web of Science ID 001606725400001

• De-risking high-recovery brackish water desalination via flow reversal and feed flushing using techno-economic assessment DESALINATION Binger, Z. M., Li, M., Dudchenko, A. V. 2025; 616

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.desal.2025.119330

  View details for Web of Science ID 001565791300001

• Component innovations for lower cost mechanical vapor compression. Water research Tucker, C. I., Bartholomew, T. V., Dudchenko, A. V., Mauter, M. S. 2024; 260: 121950

  Abstract

  Despite significant capital and operating costs, mechanical vapor compression (MVC) remains the preferred technology for challenging brine concentration applications. This work seeks to assess the dependence of MVC costs on feedwater salinity and desired water recovery and to quantify the value of improved component performance or reduced component costs for reducing the levelized cost of water (LCOW) of MVC. We built a cost optimization model coupling thermophysical, heat and mass transfer, and technoeconomic models to optimize and identify low cost MVC system designs as a function of feedwater salinity and water recovery. The LCOW ranges over 3.6 to 6.1 $/m3 for seawater feed salinities of 25-150 g/kg and water recoveries of 40-80 %. We then perform sensitivity analysis on parameter inputs to isolate irreducible costs and determine high value component innovation targets. The LCOW was most sensitive to evaporator material costs and performance, including the overall heat transfer coefficient in the evaporator. Process and material innovations such as polymer-composite evaporator tubes that reduce evaporator costs by 25 % without reducing heat transfer performance by more than 10 % would result in MVC cost reductions of 8 %.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.watres.2024.121950

  View details for PubMedID 38917505

• Novel method for accurately estimating membrane transport properties and mass transfer coefficients in reverse osmosis JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Liang, Y., Dudchenko, A., Mauter, M. S. 2023; 679

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2023.121686

  View details for Web of Science ID 000999680600001

• Inadequacy of current approaches for characterizing membrane transport properties at high salinities JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Liang, Y., Dudchenko, A. V., Mauter, M. S. 2023; 668

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2022.121246

  View details for Web of Science ID 000906689700001

• Guidance on Nusselt Number Correlation Selection in Membrane Distillation ACS ES&T ENGINEERING Dudchenko, A. V., Hardikar, M., Anand, A., Xin, R., Wang, R., Gopu, C., Mauter, M. S. 2022

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsestengg.1c00496

  View details for Web of Science ID 000824258300001

• Desalination Process Design Assisted by Osmotic Power for High Water Recovery and Low Energy Consumption ACS SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY & ENGINEERING Touati, K., Dudchenko, A., Mauter, M. S., Rahaman, M. 2022; 10 (7): 2409-2419

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c07078

  View details for Web of Science ID 000766243300016

• High-impact innovations for high-salinity membrane desalination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Dudchenko, A. V., Bartholomew, T. V., Mauter, M. S. 2021; 118 (37)

  Abstract

  Reducing the cost of high-salinity (>75 g/L total dissolved solids) brine concentration technology would unlock the potential for vast inland water supplies and promote the safe management of concentrated aqueous waste streams. Impactful innovation will target component performance improvements and cost reductions that yield the highest impact on system costs, but the desalination community lacks methods for quantitatively evaluating the value of innovation or the robustness of technology platforms relative to competing technologies. This work proposes a suite of methods built on process-based cost optimization models that explicitly address the complexities of membrane-separation processes, namely that these processes comprise dozens of nonlinearly interacting components and that innovation can occur in more than one component at a time. We begin by demonstrating the merit of performing simple parametric sensitivity analysis on component performance and cost to guide the selection of materials and manufacturing methods that reduce system costs. A more rigorous implementation of this approach relates improvements in component performance to increases in component costs, helping to further discern high-impact innovation trajectories. The most advanced implementation includes a stochastic simulation of the value of innovation that accounts for both the expected impact of a component innovation on reducing system costs and the potential for improvements in other components. Finally, we apply these methods to identify innovations with the highest probability of substantially reducing the levelized cost of water from emerging membrane processes for high-salinity brine treatment.

  View details for DOI 10.1073/pnas.2022196118

  View details for PubMedID 34493650

• Cost optimization of multi-stage gap membrane distillation JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Dudchenko, A., Bartholomew, T., Mauter, M. S. 2021; 627

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2021.119228

  View details for Web of Science ID 000639349100005

• Foulant Adsorption to Heterogeneous Surfaces with Zwitterionic Nanoscale Domains ACS APPLIED POLYMER MATERIALS Dudchenko, A., Bengani-Lutz, P., Asatekin, A., Mauter, M. S. 2020; 2 (11): 4709–18

  View details for DOI 10.1021/acsapm.0c00738

  View details for Web of Science ID 000592755800039

• Cost optimization of high recovery single stage gap membrane distillation JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Bartholomew, T. V., Dudchenko, A. V., Siefert, N. S., Mauter, M. S. 2020; 611

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2020.118370

  View details for Web of Science ID 000560701400013

• Neural networks for estimating physical parameters in membrane distillation JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Dudchenko, A. V., Mauter, M. S. 2020; 610

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2020.118285

  View details for Web of Science ID 000555548500020

• Impact of module design on heat transfer in membrane distillation JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE Dudchenko, A. V., Hardikar, M., Xin, R., Joshi, S., Wang, R., Sharma, N., Mauter, M. S. 2020; 601

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.memsci.2020.117898

  View details for Web of Science ID 000519189100019

• Enhancing boron rejection on electrically conducting reverse osmosis membranes through local electrochemical pH modification DESALINATION Jung, B., Kim, C. Y., Jiao, S., Rao, U., Dudchenko, A. V., Tester, J., Jassby, D. 2020; 476

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.desal.2019.114212

  View details for Web of Science ID 000508744900003