UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Professor Sarma V. Pisupati, director of the Center for Critical Minerals at Penn State, capped 2025 with a top honor at an alma mater.
The Osmania University College of Technology Alumni Association granted Pisupati its highest distinction — the Distinguished Alumnus Award — and hosted him as a distinguished guest and speaker at an alumni gathering Dec. 21 at the campus in Hyderabad, India.
Association leaders cited his lifetime body of work and “substantial contributions to the field and outstanding services to the society.” Pisupati credited Osmania, one of India’s oldest universities, for his adaptability in problem-solving.
“I will cherish this award for the rest of my life,” he said, noting that some of his professors, his family and about two dozen classmates went to the event. “Being recognized in the home base for what you’re doing in society, surrounded by people you care about, in the place where you started — it was really special.”
Pisupati received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Osmania in 1980, then his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology and Penn State, respectively.
A faculty member in energy and mineral engineering and chemical engineering in the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, Pisupati has studied and taught in his field for more than 40 years.
Among his accomplishments, he established the United States' first undergraduate degree program in energy engineering as part of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The program twice earned accreditation under his leadership as inaugural chair.
In the research space, Pisupati has been a co-author for more than 225 publications and principal investigator or co-principal investigator on 65 externally funded scientific projects. He also secured a U.S. patent and has three more patents that are pending.
Starting his college education amid the energy crises of the 1970s, Pisupati said he went into chemical engineering first to pursue low-grade or similar fuels as potential solutions. His work has evolved in phases, from coal processing — an early focus — to the critical minerals now in demand for renewable energy and advanced technologies.
“Problems in energy are constantly shifting. Students today may be talking about challenges in thermodynamics or chemical kinetics, but the issues of the day always change,” Pisupati said. “Our role as educators is to make sure they develop skills to solve any energy problem, no matter what shape the industry takes.”
That practical application drives him, he added. He wants to see real-world, tangible effects of his research.
In the 1990s, Pisupati’s pursuit of high-purity limestones at Penn State led to their use in capturing sulfur dioxide emissions at power plants. The advancement inspired new standards in industry and contributed to the Pennsylvania economy, he said.
Now, he said he wants to accelerate the development of key elements through the Center for Critical Minerals, which launched in 2019 and is housed in the EMS Energy Institute. Researchers there have developed a patent-pending process to separate elements such as aluminum, cobalt and manganese from acid mine drainage and other solutions.
“I’m hoping people can start looking at this as a viable option in the United States and elsewhere,” said Pisupati, who is a fellow of the American Chemical Society and the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers and an affiliate researcher with Penn State's Institute of Energy and the Environment. “With international collaboration, we can speed up the work and more rapidly diversify sources of these essential materials.”