Education

• Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1989 
• M.S., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1985
• B.S., State University of New York at Buffalo, 1983

Research

James A. Ritter, Ph.D., is a Carolina Distinguished Professor. The L. M. Weisiger Professor of Engineering and the Gibbons Teaching Professor of Chemcial Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina. Professor Ritter has authored or coauthored over 171 peer-reviewed journal articles and holds 8 U. S. Patents in the areas of cyclic adsorption processes for gas separation and purification and hydrogen storage processes and materials. His current interests focus on cyclic adsorption process R&D with funding from ONR, DOE and several university centers and private companies.

He has served or is serving as a consultant for more than 40 companies, government agencies and national laboratories including NASA MSFC, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP Amoco, Eastman Chemical and DOE. He has also served on the Editorial Boards of four journals: Separation Science and Technology; Adsorption, Journal of the International Adsorption Society; Recent Patents in Chemical Engineering; and Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research. He served as the Associate Editor for Adsorption, Journal of the International Adsorption Society (IAS) from January 2021 to June 2024 and he began serving as the Editor-in-Chief for Adsorption, Journal of the International Adsorption Society on July 1, 2024.

He received the AIChE Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology in November of 2016; and he is a co-author (M. D. LeVan, G. Carta, J. A. Ritter and K. S. Walton) of “Adsorption and Ion Exchange,” in Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook, 9th Ed., (D. W. Green and R. H. Perry, eds.), McGraw-Hill, NY (2018). Professor Ritter was named a Fellow of the ACS in July 2012, a Fellow of the AIChE in June 2013, and a Fellow of the IAS in July 2023.

Selected Publications

• J. Tynan, S. Tosso, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “On the Use of Single, Dual and Three Process Langmuir Models for Binary Gas Mixtures that Exhibit Unique Combinations of These Processes,” Adsorption, 27, 637-658 (2021).
• Fakhari-Kisomi, L. Erden, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Equilibrium Theory Analysis of Pressure Equalization Steps in Pressure Swing Adsorption,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 60, 9928−9939 (2021).
• Jiang, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Theoretical Analysis of the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for the Formation of Adsorption Azeotropes in Binary Gas Mixtures,” Langmuir, 37, 13584–13594 (2021).
• Jiang, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Theoretical Analysis of the Pressure Regions where Adsorption Azeotropes Exist in Binary Gas Mixtures,” ACS Omega, 7, 43242-43253 (2022).
• A. Adegunju, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Kinetically Limited Linear Driving Force Model for Diffusion Based Adsorptive Separations,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 61, 17615-17630 (2022).
• Mohammadi, R. T. Sanders, C. E. Holland, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Non-Experimental Methodology for Developing Pressure Drop Correlations for Structured Adsorbents with Parallel Channels,” Adsorption, 29, 29-43 (2023).
• A. Adegunju, P. B. C. A. Amalraj, C. E. Holland, M. J. Nicholson, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Assessment of the New Kinetically Limited LDF Model for Diffusion Limited Separations by PSA,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 63, 579-593 (2024).
• A. Adegunju, P. B. C. A. Amalraj, C. E. Holland, M. J. Nicholson, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, “Assessment of the New Kinetically Limited Linear Driving Force Model for Predicting Diffusion Limited Adsorption Breakthrough Curves,” Adsorption, 30, 57-77 (2024).
• Jarrett S. Turner, Armin D. Ebner and James A. Ritter, “Five Definitions of Adsorption and Their Relevance to the Formulation of Dynamic Mass Balances in Gas Adsorption Columns,” Adsorption, 30, 2267-2281 (2024).
• S. Turner, A. M. Burke, O. Smithson, M. I. Hossain, C. E. Holland, A. D. Ebner and J. A. Ritter, Volumetric Frequency Response Investigation of the Mass Transfer Mechanisms of O2 and N2 in Carbon Molecular Sieve, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 84, 5671-5688 (2025).