Patel ran particles through the Minivol and devised a way to check the efficiency of the instrument as it captured the larger particles on a flat plate and the smaller particles downstream on a filter. It was a challenging project. Patel presented his work at the annual sponsors' meeting of the Chemical Reaction Engineering Laboratory and then, a week later, went to Chicago to present a poster talk on the project for the 1996 National Student Poster contest of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. His presentation took first place in the environmental division. Patel is leaning toward a career specializing in colloids and surface sciences.
Colloids are extremely small substances suspended in a liquid, solid or gaseous medium.
He thinks an academic career is likely, but he doesn't rule out one in research and development in an industrial setting. Patel's proclivity toward chemical engineering is only natural. His father, Dinesh, is a chemical engineer who works with Milliken Chemicals in Spartanburg. His father and mother, Kashmira, emigrated from India in the late 1960s. He has a younger brother, Mehul, who is a junior in high school.