Christian Kemefa used to dream of being like the well-dressed, successful men on TV. They were, of course, petroleum engineers.
“In Nigeria, petroleum engineering is a very popular career option,” Kemefa said. “But when I got out of high school, I realized that petroleum engineering was too narrow for me.”
Kemefa attended college at the University of Benin, Nigeria, where he discovered his love of chemical engineering and ambition to maintain energy production without sacrificing the environment.
“Energy has to be available, but we also have to care about sustainability,” he said. “I really enjoy the fact that chemical engineers learn a lot of things, from science to economics, and it’s up to you to decide how to apply them.”
Although Kemefa left the petroleum track, his interest in fuels remains strong. He is pursuing his PhD at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), researching how to replace crude oil with biofuel, and he spent this summer working to improve oil recovery from underground reservoirs.
Industry Work Uncovered Passion for Research
After college, Kemefa worked as a chemical and process engineer at a chemical company while earning his master’s degree at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. When the company’s owner put Kemefa in charge of student interns developing a new product, Kemefa discovered a love of research.
Kemefa started looking for chemical engineering doctoral programs around the world. Just as he was considering whether to accept a managerial role—a promotion that would involve working in another state, away from his wife—the University of Tennessee caught Kemefa’s eye.
Knoxville would be an enormous change for both Kemefa and his wife, neither of whom had ever left Nigeria before. However, if they were going to move anyway, they wanted to take the option that would keep them together and let Kemefa pursue his passion.
Kemefa began his PhD program in January of 2023, joining the biofuel research conducted by UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Biorefining Art Ragauskas.
“I believe that the easiest way to excel is to do something you enjoy,” Kemefa said. “Dr. Ragauskas works on applying chemistry to fuels, energy, and the environment, so we have a lot of common interests.”
Balancing Career Connections and Family Bonds
When Kemefa began the CBE doctoral program, he started asking graduating students for advice. Every one of them wished they had conducted industry internships during their program.
“They got to graduation and had no industry network,” Kemefa said.
Determined to make those key connections, Kemefa started searching for internships at the end of his first year in Tennessee.
This spring, he was offered one at the Chattanooga-based Colonial Chemical company.
Kemefa and his wife were excited but torn. Taking the internship would require him to spend every weeknight in Chattanooga. He would only be able to see his wife and one-year-old son on weekends—the same kind of separation that he turned down in Nigeria.
“I want my kids to see me as a friend,” said Kemefa. “Sometimes, you see a special connection between kids and their mom that they don’t have with their dad. I don’t want my children to be distant from me.”
However, since the internship was only a few months, Kemefa and his wife decided that he should go for it. He’s glad he did.
Satisfying Surfactants for Oil Recovery
During his internship, Kemefa revisited his childhood dream of working with petroleum as he helped test three of Colonial Chemical’s surfactants (detergents) for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
“EOR uses petroleum engineering to make old oil reservoirs produce more than they would normally,” he said, explaining that, due to the high surface tension between water and oil, water-based extraction methods only bring up about 20% to 40% of the oil contained in a reservoir.
In EOR, a surfactant is mixed with water and flushed through the reservoir, breaking the surface tension and allowing the oil and water to flow together. The trouble is that EOR uses whatever type of water is closest to a reservoir—whether fresh, recycled, hard, or briny—and surfactants work differently in each.
“If you have a client with a deep-ocean reservoir and the water is salty, and another client has hard water, we want to be able to recommend the product that gives each client the best performance,” Kemefa explained.
Kemefa and his fellow researchers tested three of Colonial Chemicals’ surfactants across four types of water. They found one surfactant that performed well in all types—a rarity in the industry—and one that actually performed best in hard water, which is considered the most difficult form of water to use in EOR.
“The internship was really demanding, but I’m glad I did it,” he said. “The company is excited because this work proves clearly that these are leading products. And I’m grateful that they were able to see me as a hard worker who might be welcomed back.”
Contact
Izzie Gall (865-974-7203, egall4@utk.edu)