The who’s who of influential researchers is based on data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts from the Institute for Scientific Information at the Web of Science Group, part of Clarivate Analytics. The list identifies scientists and social scientists who produced multiple papers ranking in the top 1% by citations for their field and year of publication, demonstrating significant research influence among their peers.

The list includes 6,217 researchers in various fields from nearly 60 nations. A total of 237 researchers are listed in the chemistry category, of which three originate from the Netherlands. Accompanying professor Krishna are Nobel laureate professor Ben Feringa from the University of Groningen and professor Marc Koper from Leiden University. Other chemists from Dutch institutions are featured in the 'biology and biochemistry' and 'cross-field' categories.

The Netherlands holds the 7th place in the countries listing with a total of 164 researchers across all disciplines (2,6% of the total number of researchers listed). However, this number has decreased, as have the numbers of researchers based in Germany and the UK. China, on the other hand, has increased its share of researchers on the list.

Improving process technologies with molecular insights

Throughout his career, Rajamani Krishna has focused on improving technologies related to reaction and separation by means of investigating physico-chemical phenomena at the molecular and microscopic levels. One of the key aspects of his research is the development of unifying concepts in multicomponent diffusion and multiphase hydrodynamics, both in separations and reaction engineering. It has provided many improvements in technologies concerning distillation, recovery of oil from shale, fluidized catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, hydroprocessing, and hydrocracking. In recent years, Krishna has contributed to many research projects in the field of metal-organic framework (MOF) separations, especially with his mathematical modelling of the separation performance.

Krishna has published two text books of which one has been translated into Chinese, more than 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, and holds several patents. According to the latest statistics on Google scholar, his publications have been cited more than 40,000 times, with an h-index of 109. Krishna has received several awards for his scientific contributions, including the Akzo Nobel Science Award in 1997, and the prestigious ENI award in 2013.

The full 2019 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary can be found here, and the methodology can be found here.