Author: Orlando E

Chemical Engineering Well Represented at Annual AIChE Meeting 2012

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UConn chemical engineering students shone at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting held in Pittsburgh from October 26th to November 2nd.  With Hurricane Sandy bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard, it was challenging to get everyone out to the conference in advance of the storm, and some faculty and students were unable to attend.

Despite the weather setbacks, during the undergraduate conference, which preceded the professional/academic portion of the conference, UConn’s AIChE student members performed admirably.  Officers Breanne Muratori (chapter President) and Kimberly Dout (chapter Secretary) attended student leadership events, which they found to be informative and productive in terms of networking with fellow officers across the country.

Seven undergraduates participated in the undergraduate poster competition.  Emily Anderson (‘12), advised by Dr. Leslie Shor, was awarded first place in the Environmental Science and Engineering division for her poster, “Impact of Hydrogel Content on Water Retention in Soil Micromodels.”  Additionally, Breanne Muratori, advised by Dr. Jeff McCutcheon, gave an oral presentation entitled “Improving the Mechanical Properties of Activated Carbon Nanofiber Nonwovens.” It was one of only a handful of talks given by undergraduates at the meeting and reflects UConn AIChE’s dedication to better bridging the student section and the professional conference.

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(Left to right) Dr. Daniel Burkey, Breanne Muratori, Kimberly Dout

 

In celebration of their accomplishments, the UConn chemical engineering students and faculty held a dinner at the Bigelow Grille in Pittsburgh.  A bonus of Hurricane Sandy’s grounding of the group in Pittsburgh was that it enabled the undergraduates to stay a few extra days and experience the larger professional conference, including the university hospitality suites. UConn’s hospitality suite was a great success, with over 300 alumni and friends in attendance.

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(From left to right) Kelsey Boch, Breanne Muratori, Christine Nykyforchyn, Dr. Leslie Shor, Laurelle Giovannoli, Kimberly Dout, Amanda Card, Dr. Jeff McCutcheon, Emily Anderson, Andrea Kadilac, Dan Anastasio, Dr. Aravind Suresh, Ari Fischer, Dr. George Bollas

New Research Awards

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The Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Program would like to recognize their respective faculty members who have recently been granted new funding initiatives.

Daniel Gage (Molecular and Cell Biology) and Leslie Shor, USDA/National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Microfluidic Studies of Signaling Between Rhizosphere Bacteria and their Predators, 2/12-2/14, $150,000.

Yu Lei, University of Connecticut Center for Science & Technology Commercialization, Naked Eye-based Standoff Detection of Explosives Using Novel Signal-Amplifying Nanocomposite and Hand-held UV Light, 8/12-12/13, $7,500.

Anson Ma, NSF, Understanding the Flow Dynamics and Transport of Nanoparticles in Simulated Tumor Blood Flows for Improved Cancer Treatment, 9/12-8/14, $150,000.

Jeffrey McCutcheon, NSF, Collaborative Research: Modified Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Forward and Pressure Retarded Osmosis, 8/12-7/15, $234,405.

Jeffrey McCutcheon, Solvay Specialty Polymers, Polymeric Membranes for Emerging Separation Processes, 1/12-4/13, $102,679.

Jeffrey McCutcheon, Chevron USA, Produced Water Treatment using Forward Osmosis; Phase 1: Membrane Performance Testing, 4/12-1/13, $45,000.

Mu-Ping Nieh, James Cole (Molecular and Cell Biology) and Douglas Adamson (Chemistry), NSF, MRI: Acquisition of a State-of-the-Art Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS) Instrument for Research and Education, 9/12-8/15, $568,398.

Richard Parnas and Tim Dowding (School of Business), University of Connecticut Center for Science & Technology Commercialization, Biomass Waste to Construction Board, 5/12-1/13, $40,840.

Ioulia Valla and Prabhakar Singh, Precision Combustion Inc., 13X Zeolite as Potential Molecular Sieve for Gas Phase Impurities Removal: Emphasis on the Characterization of the Zeolite, 7/12-7/12, $9,995.

Ioulia Valla and George Bollas, NSF, Turning Tars into Energy: Zeolites with Hierarchical Pore Structure for the Catalytic Cracking of Tars, 8/12-7/14, $188,698.

Yong Wang, NSF, CREATIV: Programming Materials via Biomolecular Engineering, 9/12-8/15, $400,000.

Professor Ma Received NSF EAGER Award

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MaDr. Anson Ma of the Chemical Engineering Program has recently received NSF EAGER award (#1250661) to understand the flow dynamics of nanoparticles in simulated blood flows. Nanoparticles show great promise in delivering anticancer drugs more directly to tumors, thereby reducing the toxic side effects to normal tissues. The passive accumulation of nanoparticles in tumors is due to the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect, caused by the leaky nature of the tumor vasculature. In order to improve cancer treatment, there is an urgent need to understand the detailed mechanism of EPR.

Dr. Ma and his team will construct novel microfluidic devices that mimic blood bifurcation and leaky tumor blood vessels. The trajectory of nanoparticles in stimulated blood flows will then be characterized. The proposed research will strengthen our fundamental understanding of the EPR effect – the hallmark of passive targeted delivery of anticancer drugs. The success of the proposed research will also have far-reaching implications on the rational design of nanoparticles to allow more specific delivery of anticancer drug to tumors, thereby increasing patient comfort during cancer treatment and fulfilling a societal need.

New Bioreactor Experiment Debuts in Chemical Engineering Senior Lab

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Hawxhurst
Chemical engineering senior Chris Hawxhurst loads media into the new bioreactor in preparation for the day’s experiment.

This fall, a new experiment on cell culture and scale-up is allowing seniors in the Chemical Engineering Program to gain hands-on experience with elements of bioprocess engineering.  Thanks to a generous equipment donation from Alexion Pharmaceuticals (Cheshire, CT), students have the opportunity to utilize industry-standard equipment and learn firsthand the challenges of working with live cell cultures. This new experiment now serves as one of the anchor experiments in the rotation.  Students spend three weeks getting a taste of the entire experience, including media preparation, sterilization techniques, small-scale batch culture, and scale up to the 2-L bioreactor. Once in the bioreactor, the students look at how various parameters, including glucose concentration, agitation rate, and temperature impact the growth kinetics of their model system, E. Coli, with an eye towards maximizing biomass production. This new experiment provides the opportunity to expose the numerous undergraduates who are interested in biochemical or bioprocess engineering to the fundamentals of industrial biotech processes.

CHEG Presents Distinguished Lecturer Edwin L. Thomas

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Ed

 

DISTINGUISHED LECTURER

Edwin L. “Ned” Thomas
William and Stephanie Sick Dean,
George R. Brown School of Engineering Rice University

 

 

 

Thursday, October 25, 2012
Dodd Konover Auditorium
4:00 P.M.

INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM MAGIC?
A Perspective on Some Aspects of Materials Research in the Next Decade.
Multifunctional Materials: The Mighty Electron, the Cool Photon and the Lowly Phonon…
Problem Driven Research: Improving Sets of Properties.
Creating the Magic: Synthetic MetaMaterials. MetaMaterials blur the distinction and
bridge the regime in between engineered microstructured materials with their enhanced
properties of the traditional type and multicomponent structured devices that can display functionality (amplification, filtering, sensing, etc.). Such material systems open a whole new range of heretofore unimagined material system behaviors (e.g., cloaking).

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Friday, October 26, 2012
Institute of Materials Science
Room 20
11:00 A.M.

New Ideas to Manipulate the Mechanical Behavior of Polymeric Materials – from Phonons to Ballistics to Shock
Several examples will be described including the design of structures for multispectral band gaps for elastic waves to alter the phonon density of states, the creation of block polymer and bicontinuous metal-carbon nanoframes for structures that are robust against ballistic projectiles and quasi-crystalline solid/fluid structures that can steer shock waves.

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Edwin L. “Ned” Thomas is the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University. He holds joint appointments with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and frequently collaborates with faculty in the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

Dr. Thomas joined Rice from MIT, where he was first the founder and director of the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology (2002-2006) and then the head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (2006-2011). Preceding his career at MIT, Thomas founded and co-directed the Institute for Interface Science and headed the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts.

Thomas is a scientist and engineer passionate about promoting engineering leadership and student design competitions. His research focuses on using 2D and 3D lithography, direct-write, and self-assembly techniques for creating metamaterials with unprecedented mechanical and thermal properties. He is the recipient of numerous awards from the American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, Materials Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2009. He wrote the undergraduate textbook The Structure of Materials and has coauthored more than 400 papers and 15 patents.

CMBE Professor Yong Wang Receives NSF CREATIV Award

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wang_yon_profileDr. Yong Wang of CMBE was recently awarded a competitive National Science Foundation CREATIV (Creative Research Awards for Transformative Interdisciplinary Ventures) grant.  CREATIV, a pilot grant system part of the INSPIRE (Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education) initiative, seeks to promote innovative and interdisciplinary projects in the areas of science, engineering, and education research. Dr. Wang is one of up to forty recipients selected to receive this grant in its inaugural year.

Dr. Wang’s winning project will use molecular nano-manufacturing strategies to develop materials that have the capability to flexibly change properties, in ways similar to that of a living organism. If successful, this will open the door for the creation of a host of smart materials that are not found in nature. The success of this project will also meet the goal of the Materials Genome Initiative launched by President Obama in 2012.

Hom Sharma is awarded the 2012 Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results (EPA-STAR) Graduate Fellowship

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Hom SharmaHom Sharma, a Ph.D. candidate from the CMBE department, has received a highly competitive and prestigious Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship from The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This federal government award is limited to the country’s most outstanding graduate students in environmental science-related fields. The fellowship provides $126,000 over a three-year period to cover full tuition, a stipend, and research expenses. The fellowship has been awarded to the proposal titled “Computational and experimental investigation of catalyst deactivation to design sulfur resistant emissions oxidation catalysts” submitted to EPA. Hom is the first graduate student to receive the EPA STAR fellowship from UConn School of Engineering.

As part of this fellowship, Hom will be working on research that deals with engine emissions and catalyst deactivation due to sulfur—a complex phenomenon which involves interactions of sulfur with diesel oxidation catalysts (DOC) containing supported metals. This research will provide information of reaction kinetics for the underlying sulfation chemistry of DOC. It will help to overcome challenges inherent in the development of catalyst screening tools and aid in the identification of improved sulfur resistant DOC materials. Furthermore, engines and aftertreatment system manufacturers (who are required to meet increasingly stringent standards) will benefit from these research findings. Hom is currently part of Associate Professor Rampi Ramprasad’s research group, with his past two years of research being guided by Dr. Ashish Mhadeshwar (now with Exxon Mobil Corporation).

In 2011, Hom received a Department of Education GAANN fellowship to conduct his research. This summer, he also worked in a NSF REU Program at UConn to provide research guidance to a University of Michigan undergraduate student focusing on non-catalytic oxidation of diesel soot with O2 and NO2.

Brown Grease to Biodiesel

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UConn Chemical Engineering Professor Richard Parnas is co-founder and CTO of RPM Sustainable Technologies (RPM ST), a local biofuel and chemical engineering service company whose mission is to supply process technology to the biofuels and chemistry industries. Aided by research conducted at UConn’s Biodiesel lab, RPM ST has developed a process to convert waste, in the form of brown kitchen grease, into fuel, in the form of biodiesel. Previous to this innovation, Dr. Parnas converted yellow grease into biodiesel that then powered the UConn campus buses. However, this process grew to be economically inviable as it gained popularity and drove up the demand for and cost of yellow grease.

Brown grease, the thick waste that accumulates in the grease traps of fryers, is both less expensive and widely accessible. Restaurants and companies usually transport this waste to treatment plants for incineration or disposal, but this is an expensive process that poses detriment to both human health and the environment. RPM’s innovation makes use of this waste by splitting it into oils, used to make biodiesel, and biosolids, which are converted to another fuel source, synthesis gas. In all, Parnas says, the conversion of brown grease is a multi-billion dollar opportunity that benefits both business and the environment.

Professor Parnas Conducted Renewable Energy Research at the Sichuan University, China

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Dr. Richard Parnas visited Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, from May 11 to July 17, 2012. During the first four weeks, he taught the honors section of Chemical Reaction Engineering, a 3rd year core undergraduate course, by presenting several examples of multi-phase reactors. Upon the realization that partial differential equations and complex variables are included in the freshman year curriculum, Dr. Parnas also included heat transfer effects and wall boundary conditions.ChungHsing
Over the next few weeks, the class developed research ideas and started a project with switchable polarity solvents for biomass extraction. Many of the discussions occurred at social events, such as the birthday party of Dr. Parnas’s host, Dean of the College of Chemical Engineering Professor Bin Liang.
They then began a week of travel. Dr. Parnas gave a presentation to the Chinese Academy of Engineering in Beijing on the importance of separation processes in biomass conversion. Next they flew to Gansu province to visit a near-zero-emission combined steel, plastics, and fertilizer complex designed by Professor Liang and a team from Sichuan University.parnas_dinner A series of meetings with the governor’s Minister of Industry, the mayor of Jin Chuan city (where the complex is located), and the 10 CEOs of the companies involved in the complex illustrated the fast pace of development that is possible when public / private partnerships are executed with a cooperative attitude.