Perichiyappan Senthilnathan
Member of the Advisory Board

Mr. Perichiyappan Senthilnathan possesses a comprehensive background and experience in the fields of chemical and environmental engineering.

He holds a B. E. in Chemical Engineering with Honours; an M.Tech. in Chemical Reaction Engineering; and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering.  For the past 25 years, he has worked to apply his knowledge and develop his current expertise in those fields, nationally and internationally.  The track record of his successful accomplishments makes him an outstanding icon in the fields of his expertise.  

Career Profile

Throughout his career, Mr. Senthilnathan has held key managerial positions in large corporations.  His most prominent ones are summarized below, along with their salient points.

His executive career began in May of 1989, when he accepted the position of Senior Environmental Engineer for Merck & Co. Inc. in Elkton, Virginia, USA.  For the next two years, his responsibilities included the development of processes to treat complex wastewater streams produced during pharmaceutical manufacturing, environmental related testing during the development of new drugs, wastewater characterization and modeling, troubleshooting and optimization of wastewater treatment plants, hazardous waste and sludge management, waste minimization, development of new technologies, as well as environmental audits.  He established an Environmental Process Development Laboratory (with a budget of approximately 3 Million dollars).  He also assisted in obtaining and meeting regulatory requirements, as well as providing technical assistance to international divisions.

He was able to achieve a $500,000 savings in annual operating costs; identify and evaluate new technologies for sludge disposal; avoid a 1.5 million dollar capital cost in sludge disposal; increase the capacity of existing wastewater treatment plants by 30% with minimal cost; assist in designing a cyanide destruction facility; evaluate several wastewater treatment technologies; and finally, develop procedures for characterizing waste streams, as well as waste minimization.

From May 1991 to October 1995, he moved on to hold the position of Senior Technical Specialist, ZENON for Environmental Inc. in Canada, where he was responsible for the direction and supervision of wastewater and water treatment projects, membrane bioreactor development, technology evaluation, R&D, as well as business development. His projects included technology evaluation for municipal and hazardous waste leachate treatment, design of several industrial wastewater treatment facilities (capacities ranging from 2000 to 12000 cubic meters per day), design of hazardous industrial wastewater treatment facilities, water recovery & reuse, troubleshooting and optimization of wastewater treatment plants, design of membrane based water & wastewater treatment plants, and evaluation of package treatment plants.

In that capacity, he was also involved in developing immersed membrane water treatment and immersed membrane bioreactor technologies (that received “Stockholm Industry Water Award - 2003”, “Manning Innovation Award - 2000”, “Water Environment Federation Innovative Technology Award – 1998”).  He designed approximately 50 membrane bioreactor plants and membrane based water recovery/reuse plants (including zero discharge plants).  Additionally, he critically reviewed several full scale wastewater treatment plant designs as well as identified areas for improvement and cost savings; avoided 7 million dollars worth of problems, minimizing capital expenditure.  He also worked on advanced treatment methods, viz. microfiltration, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and advanced oxidation.  His work was invaluable with several pharmaceutical industries in projects involving wastewater treatment and pharmaceutical grade water production.

In October of 1995, Mr. Senthilnathan took on the position of Technical Director at EnviroGem Inc. in Canada that he still holds.  In that capacity, he has provided technical services to various industries for water & wastewater treatment.  His current clients include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck, Uniroyal, Olin Chemicals, Exxon, Cargill, A.E. Staley, Coors, Tyson Foods, Dow, and Monsanto.  His recent projects include optimization of a hazardous groundwater treatment facility, design/review of several large scale wastewater treatment plants, value engineering, troubleshooting and optimization of various wastewater treatment plants, startup, acceptance testing, and operator training.  He has also assisted industries in thirty-five countries in solving complex industrial wastewater treatment problems.

Publications/Presentations:  (Relevant Publications)

Lakshmanan, V.I., Senthilnathan, PR., and Sridhar, R., Process Efficiency through Innovative Recycling of Water, Presented at WaterAsia 2003 Conference, September 10-12, 2003, New Delhi, India

Lakshmanan, V.I., and Senthilnathan, PR., Water Recycle and Reuse for Sustainable Process Industries, Presented at Conference on Rural, Urban, and Industrial Water Management, February 6-7, 2003, New Delhi, India

Senthilnathan, PR., Pharmaceutical Wastewater Treatment, Water Recycle & Reuse, Presented at Conference on "Rethinking Water - Global Best Practices", March 10-11, 2003, Toronto, Canada

Senthilnathan, PR. and Weinstein Howard, Role of Information Technology in Water and Wastewater Management, Presented at Conference on "Rethinking Water - Global Best Practices", March 10-11, 2003, Toronto, Canada

Jordan, E., and Senthilnathan, PR. (1996) "Advanced Wastewater Treatment with Integrated Membrane Biosystems:  Case Studies", presented at AIChE Conference, New Orleans, February 1996.

Senthilnathan, PR. (1996) "Gas Phase Emissions:  Treatment and Destruction -- Overview", presented at AIChE Conference, New Orleans, February 1996.

Senthilnathan, PR., - Chair Person - Novel Reactor Design for Processes & Waste Treatment, American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Conference, New Orleans, February 1996.

Senthilnathan, PR., - Chair Person - Gas Phase Emissions:  Treatment & Destruction, American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Conference, New Orleans, February 1996.

Senthilnathan, PR., Mourato, D., and Rollins, R. M., (1995) Application of membrane bioreactor and reverse osmosis to treat highly saline pharmaceutical wastewater, presented at AIChE conference, Miami, November 1995.

Senthilnathan, PR., - Chair Person - Separation Processes for Total Water Management, American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Conference, Boston, August, 1995.

Mourato, D., Senthilnathan, PR., Grecu, G. M., and Rollins, R. M., (1995) Application of membrane biological reactor and reverse osmosis for pharmaceutical wastewater treatment, presented at AIChE conference, Boston, July 1995.

Reddy, M. P., Pagilla, K.R., Senthilnathan, PR., Johnson, H. W., and Golla, P. S., (1994) Estimation of biomass concentration and population dynamics in a CAPTOR activated sludge system, Wat. Sci. Technol., Vol. 29(7), 149-152.

Senthilnathan, PR., and Sigler, R. G., (1993) Improved sludge dewatering by dual polymer conditioning, Wat. Sci. Technol., Vol. 28(1), 53-57.

Golla, P. S., Senthilnathan, PR., and Johnson, H. W., (1992) Application of electro acoustics for dewatering pharmaceutical sludge, Environ. Prog., Vol. 11(1), 74-79.

Senthilnathan, PR., - Chair Person - Industrial Sludge Management Session, American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Conference, Pittsburgh, August 18-21, 1991.