Swanson School Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Fall 2016 newsletter

ChemE NEWS CHEMICAL & PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

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UC Berkeley Professor and World-renowned Catalysis Researcher

Gábor Somorjai Named 2016 Covestro Distinguished Lecturer at Pitt

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n recognition of his exemplary research in the fields of catalysis and surface chemistry, the University of California’s Gábor A. Somorjai was named the 2016 Covestro Distinguished Lecturer by Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. Dr. Somorjai presented his lectures on May 5-6, 2016 at the Swanson School of Engineering.

Dr. Somorjai is Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and Faculty Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory managed by the University of California. The Covestro Distinguished Lectureship, a continuation of the Bayer

Distinguished Lectureship, recognizes excellence in chemical education, outreach and research, and is funded by Covestro LLC. “The field of catalysis is synonymous with Dr. Somorjai, and we are honored to present him with this year’s award,” noted Steven R. Little, PhD, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Chair of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the Swanson School. “Catalysis is an integral part of our department’s research and curriculum, and so we welcome Dr. Somorjai and look forward to his insight in this rapidly evolving field.”

Gabor A. Somorjai has been a leader in the field of catalysis for more than 45 years. He has published more than 1,200 papers and 4 books. Somorjai continued on page 3

Alumnus Robert Savinell Honored with 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award

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ore than 300 faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the Swanson School of Engineering gathered this past spring to recognize the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients at the School’s annual banquet.

Gerald D. Holder, US Steel Dean of Engineering, presented awards honoring alumni from each of the School’s six departments, as well as for the Swanson School overall. This year’s recipient for the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering was Robert F. Savinell, MSCHE

‘74, PhD ‘77, the George S. Dively Professor of Electrochemical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University.

“It is an honor and privilege to recognize those alumni who have helped to transform their field and contributed to the benefit of society,” Dean Holder said. “We are especially pleased to recognize Robert for his contributions to the field of electrochemical research, as well as his accomplishments in the lab, the classroom and throughout academia.”

About Dr. Savinell Robert F. Savinell holds a master’s and doctoral degree in chemical and petroleum engineering from Pitt. An internationally-recognized scholar in the field of electrochemistry, he is the George S. Dively Professor of Engineering and a professor of chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve.

Dr. Savinell joined the Case Western Reserve faculty in 1986 as an associate professor of continued on page 19

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Remembering Irving Wender

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rving Wender, Distinguished University Research Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, died Sept. 16, 2016. He was 101.

Wender, born June 19, 1915, in Bronx, New York, earned a BS in chemistry from City College of New York, an MS from Columbia University, and a PhD in chemistry at Pitt in 1950. Prior to earning his PhD, he worked on the Manhattan Project in Chicago to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. Afterward, he rose through several positions in the Pittsburgh Energy Research Center (PERC) of the Department of Interior’s U.S. Bureau of Mines: project coordinator, research director and finally head of the chemistry division.

His work focused on everything from mine safety to converting carbon monoxide and hydrogen into low-sulfur diesel fuel and using hydrogen for fuel.

Later in his career he also served as special assistant to the secretary of fossil energy in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as well as director of the DOE’s Office of Advanced Research and other government posts in Washington, D.C. In 1981, after retiring from government service, Wender joined the Pitt faculty as a research professor in the chemical and petroleum engineering department and as an adjunct professor in chemistry.

He was named Distinguished University Research Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in 1994.

He was the author or co-author of more than 200 papers and the editor of five books. He also held 11 patents.

Among his awards and honors were the H.H. Storch Award from the American Chemical Society’s fuel division for distinguished contributions to science and utilization of coal; the Pittsburgh Award of the American Chemical Society for outstanding contributions to chemistry; the Homer H. Lowry Award in Fossil Energy from the DOE for advancing fossil energy technology; and the Department of Chemistry’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

A retrospective of Wender’s work by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which today encompasses PERC, praised Wender’s “outstanding contributions throughout his career as an innovative researcher, energy leader and dedicated educator.”

Says Eric J. Beckman, faculty member in chemical and petroleum engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering: “He was an incurable optimist. Early in his life he lost both a parent and a stepparent and graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree during the Depression, yet he never seemed to lose his optimistic outlook (this despite the fact that whenever you asked him how he was doing he would say ‘terrible’ or ‘awful’).

Who else but an optimist acquires yet another three-year federal grant in their late 80s?

“He spent over 20 years at Pitt supervising multiple graduate students and postdocs and continuously bringing in research dollars,” Beckman adds. “He published highly cited work in the 1950s and in the 1990s – pretty remarkable.

Basically, he behaved like a 40-something professor while actually being a 70-something professor; he always seemed ageless.”

What he remembers most about Wender, Beckman says, “was that he was a truly nice guy with a very silly sense of humor. He would leave notes for me and others signed Gnivri Rednew, which of course is Irving Wender spelled backwards.”

Recalls Swanson School Dean Gerald D. Holder: “He was a brilliant chemist, with a very good sense of humor and a congenial way about things.

“If you had any questions about organic chemistry, you could stop in and ask for a fiveminute explanation, and you’d get a 30-minute explanation. He knew so much about our field.”

When Holder was a first-year professor at Columbia University, he was working on coal liquids and needed to contact Wender at PERC for research samples.

“He sent me this wide range of samples with a whole range of analytical details,” Holder says. “I was flabbergasted” that a novice faculty member could get such a helpful response from the PERC director.

Holder sponsored Wender’s table at a 100thbirthday celebration of Wender’s career, held by the North American Catalysis Society. He remembers “all these famous scientists from all over the world were there and paying homage to Irving.”

When the society first broached the idea of the gathering to Wender, his reply, Holder says, was “typical Irving. He wrote back and said, ‘I’d be happy for you to recognize me if I’m not dead.’”

Wender married Reah Margolin in 1942; she died in 1998. He is survived by his son Edward and daughter-in-law Mina; son Donald and daughter-in-law Janice; son Richard and daughterin-law Diane; nine granddaughters; and three great-grandchildren. He also is survived by his companion of the past 17 years, Jean Gershon.

Memorial contributions may be sent to Rodef Shalom Temple, 4905 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh 15213 or the American Cancer Society, 320 Bilmar Drive, Pittsburgh 15205.

Author: M arty Levine. Reprinted with permission of the University Times, Volume 49 Issue 4

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From the Chair

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Our 2016/2017 academic year is off to a fantastic start, and I’m excited to share with you in our annual newsletter. Our faculty and student accomplishments hint at a very exciting year ahead for us at the University of Pittsburgh and the Swanson School of Engineering.

But first, it’s with great sorrow to share with you the loss of one of the most outstanding academic and research juggernauts in our field, Dr. Irving Wender. I’m sure many of our readers will not only recognize his name, but may have indeed heard him present at conferences or even had him in class. He will be truly missed.

It is important to note that Irving’s legacy is carried on by our faculty here at the Swanson School. You’ll read about their impact in the classroom and in the lab, and how they are contributing to the many advances in our field.

I especially want to single out a group of students who have taken entrepreneurship and innovation to a new level within our department and among their peers. In just the last two months, a team of ChemE students have championed an idea to address Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease through a portable, lightweight and low pressure oxygen delivery system that in itself is beautiful in its simplicity. They have repurposed basic aluminum

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can technology (along with a porous adsorbent) to keep oxygen pressurized, avoiding heavy, dangerous, and expensive existing technologies. Their tagline is “Big Things Come in Little Cans.”

The “Aeronics” team, led by ChemE students Blake Dube and Alec Kaija, and exercise science student Mark Spitz, have now won prizes in three different entrepreneurship competitions. They are advised by faculty member Dr. Chris Wilmer, in whose lab the product was invented, and who will be a co-founder of the company Aeronics Inc. This will be Chris’ first startup company since starting here at Pitt in 2014. The Aeronics team will be applying to the Rice Business Plan Competition in 2017, where top teams typically win $500,000-$1,000,000 (or more) prizes and access to top venture capital firms.

It’s the success of students like Blake, Alec and Mark that not only make me proud of our faculty and students, but also inspire me to further dedicate our department toward encouraging innovative and unconventional thinking in our curriculum. That’s why I’m also proud to welcome the nationally-recognized Taryn Bales to our faculty. Taryn’s reputation in engineering education is phenomenal, and she is already having an impact on our programs.

I wish all of you an exciting and prosperous year ahead, and I look forward to hearing from you or welcoming you to campus.

Best, Steve R. Little, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Department Chair

Gábor Somorjai Named 2016 Covestro Distinguished Lecturer continued from front page received his PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1960 and he was appointed to the faculty there in 1964. Since then, he has won almost every honor in his field, among them the Nichols Medal (2014), NAS Award in Chemical Sciences (2013), the Honda Prize, the ENI New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons Prize and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences (2011), the Priestley Medal (2008), the Langmuir prize from the American Physical Society (2007), the National Medal of Science (2002), the Wolf Prize (1998), the von Hippel Award from the Materials Research Society, and Peter Debye Award from the American Chemical Society (1989). He became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1979 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983.

Lecture 1: Metal Nanocatalysts, Their Synthesis and Size Dependent Covalent Bond Catalysis: Instrumentation for Characterization under Reaction Conditions Abstract: Colloidal chemistry is used to control the size, shape and composition of metal nanoparticles usually in the 1-10 nm range. In-situ methods are used to characterize the size, structure (electronic and atomic), bonding, composition and oxidation states under reaction conditions. These methods include sum frequency generation nonlinear optical spectroscopy (SFG), ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS) and high pressure scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The catalytic behavior depends on the oxidation state, coordination number, crystallographic orientation of metal sites and bonding and orientation of surface adsorbates.

Lecture 2: Oxide-metal Interfaces as Active Sites for Acid-base Catalysis: Oxidation State of Nanocatalyst

Change with Decreasing Size, Conversion of Heterogeneous to Homogeneous Catalysis, Hybrid Systems Abstract: When metal nanoparticles are placed on different mezoporous or microporous oxide supports the catalytic turnover rates and selectivities markedly change. The charge flow between the metal and the oxide ionizes the adsorbed molecules at the oxide-metal interfaces and alters the catalytic chemistry (acid-base catalysis).

The oxidation state of metal nanoparticles becomes less metallic and assume higher oxidation states with decreasing size. The small nanoclusters behave similar to transition metal ions that are active homogeneous catalysts. Hybrid systems composed of enzymes, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts are constructed to study molecularly unified catalytic schemes for the future.

NSF AWARD FUNDS STUDY

Self-assembly in Large-scale Particles

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he National Science Foundation awarded Joseph McCarthy, William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, a $404,187 grant to study the self-assembly of materials into complex structures at sizes much larger than the nanoscale.

respond dramatically to Brownian motion, larger particles often have too much mass to self-assemble in a useful way. McCarthy and his team artificially thermalize the larger particles to allow them to arrange themselves into different sizes and shapes. The results could open up new engineering possibilities across multiple fields.

The self-assembly of materials is a phenomenon in which component parts of a system spontaneously organize themselves into a uniform and desired structure. This process is similar to how a number of coinshaped magnets might assemble themselves into a cylinder if they are jostled. At the nanoscale, particles arrange themselves into organized and stable structures whereby the “jostling” is accomplished simply through natural thermal (Brownian) motion. Because nanoparticles exhibit this behavior on their own, they can easily be used to build biological and chemical sensors, computer chips with more computing power and a variety of photonic devices.

“Cells are typically about 10 microns. If we took a traditional approach to forming tissue engineering scaffolding via self-assembly, the pores between the components would be much too small for the cells to infiltrate. The methods we will be experimenting with and modeling would allow us to create scaffolding with pore sizes similar to those of cells and which also helps keeps the cells alive by promoting good nutrient flow due to the regularity of the pore structure,” said McCarthy.

Larger particles are more difficult for scientists and engineers to manipulate, and they have not yet shown the potential for the same range of applications that has caused the explosion of nanotechnology in recent years. However, the results of McCarthy’s research have already suggested the self-assembly of larger particles is possible.

“Fabricating the self-assembly of larger particles had been done a handful of times before we started trying it, but we’ve pushed the possibilities a lot further,” said McCarthy. “Other researchers noticed the phenomenon occurring empirically, but we are trying to formalize it. We are working with particles that are at least 100 times bigger than anything that has been done before.”

An array of problems has prevented researchers from exploring the possibilities of engineering larger structures. While nanoparticles

Another field that might benefit greatly from large-scale self-assembly is microelectronics. Next-generation batteries with higher charge capacities suffer from phase changes, meaning the cycles of charging and discharging cause changes to the battery’s internal structure.

These variations hinder the battery’s performance and eventually prevent it from holding a charge at all. Chemical engineers would be able to apply large-scale self-assembly to create batteries in which ions were able to be transferred more precisely, potentially resulting in a longer life spans.

The study, “Realizing Hierarchically Ordered Porous Function Materials from the Crystallization of Both Large-scale and Colloidal Particles,” will attempt to both advance the fundamental understanding of large-scale self-assembly and test applications of some of the materials already engineered by McCarthy and his team.

Department of Defense Funds Study

Developing a New Method of Identifying and Destroying Hazardous Chemicals

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he University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and Department of Chemistry, along with Temple University’s Department of Chemistry, will collaborate on research funded by a grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) within the United States Department of Defense. Pitt and Temple researchers will investigate the use of multifunctional metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with plasmonic cores that can be used to detect and destroy chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals.

The DTRA funds academic research to find solutions for effective and affordable threat reduction, concentrating on combating weapons of mass destruction. Pitt and Temple researchers will receive $1.5 million over three years with the potential to be increased to $2.5 million over five years.

Principal investigator J. Karl Johnson, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, will lead the study by modeling multifunctional MOFs at the atomic scale. The team will design new MOFs that facilitate selective transport of toxic chemicals to a plasmonic nanoparticle core within the MOF, where they can be detected and neutralized.

“What we want to do is produce new hybrid materials that use light to detect chemical warfare agents,” said Johnson. “When you shine a light on plasmonic nanoparticles, electrons in the material are excited by the light. We can use

these excited electrons to detect chemicals and carry out chemical reactions once the substances are identified.”

their expense limits widespread use. Millstone will lead the research into finding other materials to replace gold and silver.

Nathaniel Rosi, professor of chemistry at Pitt, Jill Millstone, associate professor of chemistry at Pitt, and Eric Borguet, professor of chemistry at Temple, will join Johnson on the study.

“About 99 percent of the plasmonic materials studied for these technologies have been made with either gold or silver,” said Millstone. “But, as promising as the plasmonic properties are, the expense is too high. Our work is to develop new materials from cheaper, earth abundant metals and metal combinations. Each component of this research is novel, and we are very excited to make significant contributions to our fields.”

Rosi will lead research into the chemistry of the MOFs and work to design MOFs with stratified layers that direct the chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals to the plasmonic core.

“The porous MOF contains gradients of functional layers that lead to the plasmonic core. The sponge that’s on your kitchen sink has pores, but they are uniform inside and out. The MOFs we are developing have multiple porous layers, and each layer has affinity for different molecules. It would be like having a sponge with a special layer for cleaning up water, another for oil and another for coffee or any other mess in the kitchen,” said Rosi.

Another key component of the research will be finding the right substances to make up the plasmonic core. Gold and silver are traditionally used because they exhibit the appropriate oscillating behavior when light is shone on them. However,

Borguet, in charge of the team at Temple, will direct the sensing and catalytic studies, deploying a suite of techniques to help optimize the response of the materials to specific target analytes.

Pitt Researchers Propose New Treatment to Prevent Kidney Stones

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natural citrus fruit extract has been found to dissolve calcium oxalate crystals, the most common component of human kidney stones, in a finding that could lead to significantly improving kidney stone treatment, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Houston, and Litholink Corporation.

Mpourmpakis was joined in the research by Jeff Rimer, Ernest J. and Barbara M. Henley Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston, and John Asplin, nephrologist at Litholink Corporation. Graduate students Michael G. Taylor of Pitt, Jihae Chung of Houston, and researcher Ignacio Granja of Litholink Corporation also contributed to the study.

In a study published Aug. 8 in the journal Nature, the researchers offer the first evidence that the compound hydroxycitrate (HCA) effectively inhibits calcium oxalate crystal growth and, under certain conditions, is able to dissolve the crystals. HCA shows “promise as a potential therapy to prevent kidney stones,” the researchers wrote.

At Pitt, Mpourmpakis and Taylor applied density functional theory, a highly accurate computational method used to study the structure and properties of materials, to discover how HCA and CA bind to calcium and to calcium oxalate crystals. They found that HCA formed a stronger bond with crystal surfaces, inducing a strain that appears to be relieved by the release of calcium and oxalate, thus dissolving the crystal.

Kidney stones are small mineral pellets that form in the kidneys and may be found throughout the urinary tract. Frequently painful but harmless, the National Institutes of Health estimates that more than 300,000 patients visit emergency rooms for kidney stones each year.

Though it’s the most frequent urinary tract ailment, little has changed in preventative treatments for kidney stones in the past 30 years.

Most patients at risk for kidney stones are instructed to drink water, reduce the amount of foods high in oxalates such as leafy green vegetables and nuts in their diet, and take citrate (CA) in the form of a potassium citrate supplement to slow crystal growth.

HCA, which is chemically similar to potassium citrate, is found in several tropical plants including garcinia cambogia, commonly known as Malabar tamarind.

The researchers found that the HCA inhibits growth of the crystals by binding to them and that even in very small concentrations it can actually dissolve those crystals.

“We were very excited to identify a molecular-level mechanism under which calcium oxalate grows and degrades in its natural environment,” said Giannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering. “Eventually, this will help us control the crystal’s life cycle.”

Chung and Rimer studied interactions between the crystals CA and HCA under realistic growth conditions, allowing the researchers to record crystal growth in real time with near-molecular resolution.

Chung noted that the images recorded the crystal actually shrinking when exposed even to supersaturated concentrations of calcium oxalate.

Asplin and Granja tested HCA in human subjects, allowing researchers to determine that HCA is excreted through urine, a requirement for the supplement to work as a treatment.

Although this research established the groundwork to design an effective drug, the authors believe that more work is still needed, including additional human studies, to address the long-term safety and dosage.

“But our initial findings are very promising,” Rimer said. “If it works in vivo, similar to our trials in the laboratory, HCA has the potential to reduce the incidence rate of people with chronic kidney stone disease.”

Image: Morphology changes of calcium oxalate monohydrate (kidney stone) crystals using different growth inhibitors. (Courtesy Mpourmpakis Lab Group)

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Research at Pitt into “Materials that Compute” Advances

Engineers Demonstrate System Performs Pattern Recognition

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he potential to develop “materials that compute” has taken another leap at the Swanson School of Engineering, where researchers for the first time have demonstrated that the material can be designed to recognize simple patterns. This responsive, hybrid material, powered by its own chemical reactions, could one day be integrated into clothing and used to monitor the human body, or developed as a sin for “squishy” robots.

“Pattern recognition for materials that compute,” published in the AAAS journal Science Advances (DOI: 0.1126/sciadv.1601114), continues the research of Anna C. Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and Steven P. Levitan, the John A. Jurenko Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Co-investigators are Yan Fang, lead author and graduate student researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Victor V. Yashin, Research Assistant Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

The computations were modeled utilizing Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) gels, a substance that oscillates in the absence of external stimuli, with an overlaying piezoelectric (PZ) cantilever.

These so-called BZ-PZ units combine Dr. Balazs’ research in BZ gels and Dr. Levitan’s expertise in computational modeling and oscillator-based computing systems.

“BZ-PZ computations are not digital, like most people are familiar with, and so to recognize something like a blurred pattern within an image requires nonconventional computing,” Dr. Balazs explained. “For the first time, we have been able to show how these materials would perform the computations for pattern recognition.”

Dr. Levitan and Mr. Fang first stored a pattern of numbers as a set of polarities in the BZ-PZ units, and the input patterns are coded through the initial phase of the oscillations imposed on these units. The computational modeling revealed that

the input pattern closest to the stored pattern exhibits the fastest convergence time to the stable synchronization behavior, and is the most effective at recognizing patterns. In this study, the materials were programmed to recognize black-and-white pixels in the shape of numbers that had been distorted.

Compared to a traditional computer, these computations are slow and take minutes.

However, Dr. Yashin notes that the results are similar to nature, which moves at a “snail’s pace.”

“Individual events are slow because the period of the BZ oscillations is slow,” Dr. Yashin said.

“However, there are some tasks that need a longer analysis, and are more natural in function.

That’s why this type of system is perfect to monitor environments like the human body.”

For example, Dr. Yashin said that patients recovering from a hand injury could wear a glove that monitors movement, and can inform doctors whether the hand is healing properly or if the patient has improved mobility. Another use would be to monitor individuals at risk for early onset Alzheimer’s, by wearing footwear that would analyze gait and compare results against normal movements, or a garment that monitors cardiovascular activity for people at risk of heart disease or stroke.

Since the devices convert chemical reactions to electrical energy, there would be no need for

external electrical power. This would also be ideal for a robot or other device that could utilize the material as a sensory skin.

“Our next goal is to expand from analyzing black-and-white pixels to grayscale and more complicated images and shapes, as well as to enhance the devices storage capability,” Mr. Fang said. “This was an exciting step for us and reveals that the concept of “materials that compute” is viable.”

The research is funded by a five-year National Science Foundation Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) grant, which focuses on complex and pressing scientific problems that lie at the intersection of traditional disciplines.

“As computing performance technology is approaching the end of Moore’s law growth, the demands and nature of computing are themselves evolving,” noted Sankar Basu, NSF program director. “This work at the University of Pittsburgh, supported by the NSF, is an example of this groundbreaking shift away from traditional silicon CMOS-based digital computing to a non-von Neumann machine in a polymer substrate, with remarkable low power consumption. The project is a rare example of much needed interdisciplinary collaboration between material scientists and computer architects.”

Pitt Researchers Developing Sponge-like Material to More Efficiently Store Natural Gas

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lthough compressed natural gas represents a cleaner and more efficient fuel for vehicles, its volatile nature requires a reinforced, heavy tank that stores the gas at high pressure and therefore limits vehicle design. Researchers at the Swanson School of Engineering are utilizing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to develop a new type of storage system that would adsorb the gas like a sponge and allow for more energy-efficient storage and use.

The research, “Mechanisms of Heat Transfer in Porous Crystals Containing Adsorbed Gases: Applications to Metal-Organic Frameworks,” was published in the journal Physical Review Letters by Christopher E. Wilmer, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and postdoctoral fellow Hasan Babaei. (DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevLett.116.025902) Traditional CNG tanks are empty structures that require the gas to be stored at high pressure, which affects design and the weight of the vehicle. Dr. Wilmer and his lab are

instead focused on porous crystal/ gas systems, specifically MOFs, which possess structures with extremely high surface areas.

“One of the biggest challenges in developing an adsorbed natural gas (ANG) storage system is that the process generates significant heat which limits how quickly the tank can be filled,” Dr. Wilmer said.

“Unfortunately, not a lot is known about how to make adsorbents dissipate heat quickly. This study illuminates some of the fundamental mechanisms involved.”

According to Dr. Wilmer, gases have a $500 billion impact on the global economy, but storing, separating, and transporting gas requires energy-intensive compression. His research into MOFs is an extension of his start-up company, NuMat Technologies, which develops MOF-based solutions for the gas storage industry.

“By gaining a better understanding of heat transfer mechanisms at the atomic scale in porous materials, we could develop a more efficient material that would be thermally

Pictured above is an idealized porous crystal structure (blue spheres) containing adsorbed gas molecules (orange spheres). Gas adsorption into nanoporous crystals (e.g., metal-organic frameworks) reduces the system’s thermal conductance due to phonon scattering in the crystal due to interactions with gas molecules.

conductive rather than thermally insulating,” he explained. “Beyond natural gas, these insights could help us design better hydrogen gas storage systems as well. Any industrial process where a gas

interacts with a porous material, where heat is an important factor, could potentially benefit from this research.”

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NSF GRANT FUNDS STUDY

Development of a Transistor Based on Two-Dimensional Crystals to Lower the Energy Consumption of Electronics

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wo ChemE researchers received a $496,272 grant from the National Science Foundation to study two-dimensional semiconductors with the goal of demonstrating a switch that requires less power than conventional silicon-based transistors.

Eric Beckman, the George M. Bevier Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, will join Fullerton as co-principle investigator of the study, “A New Approach to Explore the Semiconductorto-Metal Phase Transition in Two-Dimensional (2D) Crystals Using Ionomers.”

“As electronic devices continue to become more integrated into our daily lives, more energy is required to power these devices,” said Susan Fullerton, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and principle investigator of the study. “On a large scale, decreasing the power requirements of electronics would impact global energy consumption.”

The individual layers of 2D crystals can be isolated to make electronic devices that are a single atom or molecule thick. The semiconductor research community has been studying these materials extensively for the past decade as a potential lowvoltage replacement for traditional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) electronics.

The key is triggering the material to switch very abruptly from a state in which the flow of charge is restricted (insulator) to a state in which charge can flow easily (conductor) and to do this at low voltage.

Fullerton and Beckman will use a type of polymer electrolyte called an ionomer to induce this abrupt switching in the 2D crystal with an applied field. Theoretical predictions indicate that the material can switch states from an insulator to a conductor when a sufficient amount of strain is applied, and Fullerton and Beckman will deliver that strain at low voltage by customsynthesized ionomers.

Beyond nanoelectronics for logic, the research will contribute to the development of materials and phase change devices that respond to electrical, chemical or strain stimuli, with potential application in brain-inspired computing and artificial synapses.

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introducing our new faculty members tarynbayles

andrewbunger

Taryn Melkus Bayles is a non-tenure stream professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, and serves as the Chair of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Education Division. She has spent part of her career working in industry with Exxon, Westinghouse and Phillips Petroleum, and more than over 20 years teaching chemical engineering at the University of Nevada Reno, University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland College Park and University of Maryland Baltimore County. In her courses she incorporates her industrial experience to help students understand fundamental engineering principles.

Dr. Andrew Bunger is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a secondary appointment in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. He joined the Swanson School of Engineering in 2013 after spending ten years in Melbourne, Australia working in, and eventually leading the Geomechanics Group within the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Prior to his tenure with CSIRO, he earned his PhD in geological engineering from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Bunger’s research interests include the mechanics of hydraulic fractures, coupled fluid-shale interaction, and the emplacement dynamics of magma-driven dykes and sills. His research has been applied in a wide range of subsurface applications including underground mining methods, oil and gas extraction, enhancing recovery from geothermal energy resources, and CO2 geosequestration. Dr. Bunger is currently leading three petroleum industrysponsored projects that combine small-scale laboratory experimentation, analytical methods, and numerical modeling to understand growth geometries of hydraulic fractures in the context of oil and gas recovery from shale and other low permeability reservoirs.

Her research focuses on Engineering Education and Outreach to increase awareness of and interest in pursuing engineering as a career, as well as to understand what factors help students be successful once they have chosen engineering as a major. She is the co-author of the INSPIRES (INcreasing Student Participation, Interest and Recruitment in Engineering & Science) curriculum, which introduce high school students to engineering design through handson experiences and inquiry-based learning with real world engineering design challenges. This curriculum targets the International Technology and Engineering Education Association Standards as well as National Next Generation Science Standards and aligns with the Framework for K-12 Science Education.

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susanfullerton

johnkeith

jamesmckone

Dr. Susan Fullerton joined the department as an assistant professor in fall 2015. Dr. Fullerton completed her PhD in chemical engineering at The Pennsylvania State University in 2009. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, she used neutron scattering techniques to measure the molecular-level structure and mobility of polymer electrolytes, offering new insight into the mechanisms for conductivity enhancement when metal oxide nanoparticles are used as an additive.

For this work she was awarded the 2009 Frank J. Padden, Jr. Award for excellence in polymer physics research by the American Physical Society (APS). Prior to Pitt, Dr. Fullerton joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame as a research assistant professor in fall 2009. There she extended her polymer electrolyte work to include both energy storage and applications in nanoelectronics. These include field-controlled ion gating of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) FETs, and twodimensional ion-graphene memory. Dr. Fullerton is currently a PI or co-PI on four external grants focused on controlling ion-electron transport for next-generation devices.

Dr. John Keith is the inaugural R. K. Mellon Faculty Fellow in Energy and an assistant professor affiliated with Pitt’s Center for Energy and the Center for Simulation and Modeling. After obtaining his PhD in computational chemistry from Caltech, he was an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulm (Germany) in the Institute for Electrochemistry and later an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. His research group uses computational quantum chemistry modeling to study, predict, and design chemical reaction mechanisms, materials, and catalysts. Dr. Keith currently has over 40 peer-reviewed publications, most of which involve detailed studies of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis reaction mechanisms. Current activities focus on development and applications of computational chemistry for sustainability and renewable energy. Specific projects include: elucidating electrochemical processes that recycle CO2 into fuels, photochemical water oxidation for sustainable hydrogen generation, the development of environmentally green chelating agents, and atomistic forcefield development for nanoscale simulations. Dr. Keith is also the recruiting coordinator for the department’s PhD program.

Dr. James McKone joined the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in September of 2016. He holds a BA in chemistry and music from Saint Olaf College (2008) and a PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (2013), where he carried out fundamental and applied research on the production of hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water. At Caltech, Dr. McKone was award the Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral prize for originality and ingenuity in thesis research, as well as the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prize for best thesis research in the field of renewable energy. Prior to his appointment at Pitt, he spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University as part of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell. There he studied electrochemical systems for grid-scale solar energy storage with support from the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot research program. Dr. McKone’s nascent research at Pitt makes use of the tools of electrochemistry and materials chemistry to develop promising new technologies for energy sustainability. Current areas of interest include batteries, fuel cells, solar cells, and water purification.

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new faculty members (continued)

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Dr. Giannis (Yanni) Mpourmpakis joined the department in August 2013. His research focuses on first-principles-based multiscale modeling of nanomaterials, with applications in the nanotechnology and energy arenas. He is leading the Computer-Aided Nano & Energy Lab (CANELA) at Pitt with research thrusts in nanocatalysis, nanoparticle growth and biomass conversion.

Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, he was a senior researcher at the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation (CCEI), at the University of Delaware (UD). Dr. Mpourmpakis graduated from the Chemistry Department, at the University of Crete, Greece (2001), where he also earned his MSc (2003) and PhD (2006). Dr. Mpourmpakis’ doctoral research focused on the theoretical design of novel nano-materials for hydrogen storage applications. In 2006, he joined the Chemical Engineering Department at UD as a postdoctoral researcher and investigated the catalytic behavior and growth mechanisms of metal nanoparticles. Dr. Mpourmpakis has published more than 50 research papers in high-impact journals. His research has attracted significant recognition, including the Marie-Curie International Outgoing Fellowship by the European Commission, and he was one of 500 Young Scientists selected to participate in the 60th Annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in 2010.

Dr. Chris Wilmer’s research focuses on the use of large-scale molecular simulations to help find promising materials for energy and environmental applications. His research group computationally investigates millions of hypothetical materials on large supercomputers, and then works with experimental collaborators to synthesize the best ones. Specific research efforts will be aimed at designing porous materials for natural gas storage and separations, carbon capture, and gas sensors. Dr. Wilmer’s group is also interested in fundamental insights into structure-property relationships of porous materials, which can be discovered by “mining” the mountains of data generated during the large-scale computational screening process.

Dr. Shoemaker joined Pitt’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering as an assistant professor in fall 2015. He graduated with a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara and moved to Tokyo shortly after to join Yoshi Kawaoka’s interdisciplinary influenza-induced host responses research group. As a team member of the computational biology team, he developed nonlinear, biologically-inspired statistical models to better associate the effects of signaling pathways with disease severity and inflammation. Dr. Shoemaker became team leader of the computational group in 2014 during which he analyzed the distinct inflammatory behaviors that occur between several animal models and cell types challenged with influenza. At Pitt, Dr. Shoemaker’s research is focused on developing theoretical and computational tools to exploit large-scale, ‘omics’ data for the purposes of simulating the complex dynamics of disease progression and guiding therapy design.

Dr. Wilmer received his BASc from the University of Toronto and his PhD in chemical and biological engineering from Northwestern University. In addition to basic research, he co-founded a startup, NuMat Technologies, which designs and manufactures porous materials for various gas storage applications. In 2012, NuMat won the Department of Energy’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition held at the White House, and for his role in starting the company, Dr. Wilmer was named to the Forbes Magazine “30 Under 30 in Energy” list.

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ACS Awards Petrochemical Research Grant

Computer Modeling Research

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iannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor of chemical engineering, received a $110,000 grant from the American Chemical Society (ACS) for computer modeling research to investigate the conversion of ethane, propane, butane and other alkanes used in the petrochemical industry.

The study, “Identifying Structure-Activity Relationships for the Dehydrogenation of Alkanes on Oxides,” will look to gain a fundamental understanding of the dehydrogenation of small hydrocarbons to olefins on metal oxides under experimental conditions.

“Olefins are the building blocks for the production of chemicals and plastics,” said Mpourmpakis.

“We can avoid the time and money it takes performing experiments in a traditional chemical lab through computer simulations and then design new catalysts, again, without the need to perform tedious experiments.”

Pitt researchers will attempt to identify structureactivity relationships (SARs) – the relationships between a molecule’s three-dimensional structure and its catalytic activity – on metal oxides.

Although much research has been done on the SARs on metals, the scientific community has little understanding of these relationships on metal oxides.

At the Computer-Aided Nano and Energy Lab at Pitt, Mpourmpakis and his team have been successful investigating the dehydration of simple alcohols on various metal oxides. Mpourmpakis’

Pictured above from left to right are members of the Computer-Aided Nano and Energy Lab (C.A.N.E.LA.) including Natalie Austin, Dr. Mpourmpakis, Pavlo Kostetskyy, Michael Taylor and Xi Peng.

previous study, “Structure-activity relationships on metal-oxides: alcohol dehydration,” outlined a simple but powerful model to allow researchers to easily test different alcohols and metal-oxide catalysts according to their dehydration activity and appeared as a cover article of Catalysis Science & Technology published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

“We are building on our previous knowledge of alcohol dehydration on metal oxides and applying the understanding we have of in-silico

experimentation to a different scientific problem: the alkane dehydrogenation,” said Mpourmpakis.

The ACS will designate Mpourmpakis’ grant as a Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) Grant. DNI grants promote the careers of young faculty by supporting research of high scientific caliber and enhancing the career opportunities of their undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral associates, through the research experience.

Study of Enzymatic Chemical Reactions by Pitt and Penn State Researchers May Indicate How the First Cells Formed Colonies

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novel investigation of how enzymatic reactions can direct the motion and organization of microcapsules may point toward a new theory of how protocells – the earliest biological cells – could have organized into colonies and thus, could have ultimately formed larger, differentiated structures.

Researchers at the Swanson School of Engineering, along with collaborators at Penn State University’s Chemistry Department, found that very simple physical and chemical processes that do not rely on complex biological machinery guided the self-assembly of the microcapsules, which served as models for the protocells.

Namely, the researchers isolated a dynamic cascade of events that lead the microcapsules to organize into a well-defined colony.

Anna C. Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at Pitt with post-doctoral associates Oleg E. Shklyaev and Henry Shum developed the computational modeling based upon previous experiments conducted by Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Penn State University.

“Harnessing surface-bound enzymatic reactions to organize microcapsules in solution” was published last week in the AAAS journal Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501835).

The researchers modeled microcapsules between 10-50 micrometers in diameter, the typical size of biological cells. In this study, the microcapsules

consisted of an outer shell and a fluid-filled core containing hydrogen peroxide, which gradually leaked through the shell into the surrounding fluid. The hydrogen peroxide acted as a chemical reagent for a patch of enzymes on the surface under the microcapsules. The reaction occurring at the enzymes released heat and lowered the fluid density, driving the convection of the surrounding fluid. This fluid flow carried the immersed capsules and brought them together above the enzymecoated surface. After the reagent was consumed, the fluid flow ceased and the capsules remained localized above the patch of enzymes.

Dr. Balazs noted that “this study is relatively unique because Ayusman was the first to realize that simple enzymatic reactions could transduce chemical energy into fluid motion in this way and we have now used this mechanism to control the assembly of microcapsules into colonies.”

“The beautiful simplicity of the underlying principles means that this is a plausible mechanism by which the earliest biological cells, which were simply a protective shell enclosing some fluid and simple components, assembled into colonies.” Dr. Sen explained. “Neither a protocell nor a microcapsule possesses complex biological machinery, just a porous container through which molecules diffuse in and out.

This could be how protocells communicated and formed the groups that would evolve into multicellular organisms.”

Dr. Balazs and her team were able to regulate the assembly of the microcapsules by patterning the distribution of enzymes on a bottom wall, creating different types of configurations – in this instance, circular, square and crankshaft shapes. The size and number of the capsules determined the amount of fuel available to regulate the velocities.

This mechanism indicates a means of controlling where and how the capsules self-organize without external stimuli.

“The density variation created by the secretion of a reagent and its reaction at the enzymes on the bottom wall caused the fluid flow, which resulted in the assembly of the microcapsules into colonies,” Dr. Shklyaev added. “No magnetic or electric fields are needed to guide the microcapsules. We only need gravity, which is present everywhere on Earth. This approach can apply both to biological applications, as well as cargo delivery into particular areas of a microchannel.”

According to Dr. Balazs, this research provides a novel approach for manipulation in small fluidic devices. Utilization of different catalysts would allow different flow patterns to develop depending on the chemicals present in the fluid or microcapsules. This could potentially lead to autonomous sorting of cells or assembly of large, predesigned structures from smaller building blocks.

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team of chemical engineers at the Swanson School of Engineering identified the two main factors for determining the optimal catalyst for turning atmospheric CO2 into liquid fuel. The results of the study, which appeared in the journal ACS Catalysis, will streamline the search for an inexpensive yet highly effective new catalyst.

Imagine a power plant that takes the excess carbon dioxide (CO2) put in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and converts it back into fuel. Now imagine that power plant uses only a little water and the energy in sunlight to operate. The power plant wouldn’t burn fossil fuels and would actually reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere during the manufacturing process. For millions of years, actual plants have been using water, sunlight, and CO2 to create sugars that allow them to grow. Scientists around the globe are now adopting their energy-producing behavior.

“We’re trying to speed up the natural carbon cycle and make it more efficient,” said J. Karl Johnson, William Kepler Whiteford Professor in the Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering and principal investigator of the study. “You don’t have to waste energy on all the extra baggage it takes to grow plants, and the result is a man-made carbon cycle that produces liquid fuel.”

There’s one catch. CO2 is a very stable molecule, and enormous amounts of energy are required to get it to react. One common way to make use of excess CO2 involves removing an oxygen atom and combining the remaining CO with H2 to create methanol. However, during this process parts of the conversion reactor need to heat as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius, which can be difficult to sustain, especially when the only energy source is the sun.

A catalyst can cause the CO2 to react at much lower temperatures. Some researchers have been experimenting with different materials that can get the CO2 to split – even at room temperature. But these, and most, reactive catalysts already identified are too expensive to mass-produce, and fossil fuels still offer a cheap source of energy. The low price and abundance of fossil fuels prevents a lot of companies from investing in the expensive trial and error process of researching new catalysts.

The study, “Screening Lewis Pair Moieties for Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 in Functionalized UiO-66” (DOI: 10.1021/ acscatal.5b01191) provides researchers with a good idea of how they should start looking for an optimal catalyst. Johnson, along with study co-author and post-doctoral researcher Jingyun Ye at the University of Pittsburgh, examined a series of eight different functional groups of Lewis acid and base pairs (Lewis pairs for short), which are highly reactive compounds often used as catalysts. They found that the two factors qualifying a material as a good catalyst are its hydrogen adsorption energy and the Lewis pair’s hardness – a measurement of the difference between its ionization potential and electron affinity.

Using this framework, Johnson plans to work with experimentalists to screen for catalysts more effectively, and hopefully, bring researchers closer to creating power plants that create liquid fuel while reducing atmospheric CO2.

Imagine contributing to the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere every time you fill up your gas tank.

Pitt and CMU Team Receives $550,000 in NSF Funding

Custom Design of Metal Nanoparticles that Capture Carbon Dioxide

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uilding upon their previous research, engineering faculty at the Swanson School of Engineering and Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a novel computational framework that can custom design nanoparticles. In particular, the group is investigating bimetallic nanoparticles to more effectively control their adsorption properties for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The three-year grant, “Collaborative Research: Design of Optimal Bimetallic Nanoparticles,” is led by Giannis Mpourmpakis, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at Pitt and group leader of the ComputerAided Nano Energy Lab (C.A.N.E.LA.). Coinvestigators are Götz Veser, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at Pitt and associate director of the University’s Center for Energy; and Chrysanthos Gounaris, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. The NSF Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) awarded $350,395 to Pitt and $199,605 to CMU to support computational research and targeted experiments.

“Bulk metals behave differently than their related nanoparticles, and our research has shown that bimetallic nanoparticles exhibit unique adsorption properties,” Dr. Mpourmpakis explained. “Our previous research focused on the size and shape of gold nanoparticles toward their catalytic behavior, and now we are investigating copper nanoparticles and their ability to adsorb and activate carbon dioxide.”

The researchers will utilize Pitt’s Center for Simulation and Modeling to computationally identify bimetallic nanoparticles that maximize their performance for a given application. By optimizing the shape, size and metal composition of bimetallic nanoparticles through computer simulation, the researchers can reduce the need for expensive and time-consuming experiments in the lab, which are often based on extensive trial and error.

“Because we know that copper-based bimetallics effectively adsorb CO2, we can now fine-tune the nanoparticle morphology to maximize adsorption,” Dr. Mpourmpakis said. “The benefit to the environment of being able to capture CO2 and potentially convert it to a useful chemical would be profound.”

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Fall 2016 | 17

Chemical Engineering Students Awarded 2016 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships Pitt juniors Patrick A. Asinger and Charles J. Hansen were honored with Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships for their research endeavors in the areas of chemical engineering and molecular biology.

The Goldwater Scholarship, established in 1986 by the U.S. Congress and named for then-Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, supports outstanding students who are pursuing careers in the fields of engineering, mathematics, and the natural sciences. The award – granted in either a student’s sophomore or junior year – assists in covering the costs of books, room and board, and tuition for each student’s remaining period of study.

Institutions can nominate up to four students per year for the Goldwater Scholarship. This is the fourth consecutive year that all of Pitt’s nominees have received either the scholarship or an honorable mention designation. Pitt students have now won a total of 47 Goldwater Scholarships since 1996.

A native of Bradford, Pa., Patrick A. Asinger is majoring in chemical engineering within the Swanson School. Upon his anticipated graduation from Pitt in the spring of 2017, Asinger plans to pursue a doctoral degree in chemical engineering.

Asinger plans to focus his professional research in the areas of improved renewable energy conversion and storage. Bridging the gap between laboratory experimentation and real-world application, he is working to be an influential figure in the development of catalyst systems that can efficiently convert carbon dioxide into fuel sources on a large scale.

Asinger’s undergraduate research pursuits have been performed in the laboratory of Swanson School professor Götz Veser. Last summer, he conducted research through the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

In addition to his research, Asinger has been an organic chemistry teaching assistant, an outreach coordinator for the American Chemical Society, and a member of Engineers for a Sustainable World and the Chemical Engineering Honor Society. His previous honors and distinctions include Pitt’s University Scholarship, the most honorable design designation at the 2014 Pitt Student Design Expo, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) RISE Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service.

A native of Mechanicsburg, Pa., Charles J. Hansen is majoring in chemical engineering within the Swanson School. Upon his anticipated graduation from Pitt in the spring of 2017, Hansen plans to pursue a doctoral degree in chemical engineering.

Hansen plans to focus his professional research pursuits towards clean energy production and energy storage. He looks forward to collaborating with scientists and engineers from different technical and international backgrounds in order to make breakthroughs in the energy field.

During his undergraduate career, Hansen has been heavily involved in a range of undergraduate research endeavors, working closely with Swanson School professors Daniel Cole and Götz Veser. The findings of his work have been published in Ingenium, the publication of undergraduate research within the Swanson School.

Last summer, Hansen continued his energy research through the Amgen Scholars Program at the California Institute of Technology. His other awards and distinctions include the Swanson School’s John W. Tierney Scholarship and Edward B. Stuart and Geraldine J. Stuart Memorial Scholarship. He was an active member of such notable organizations as the American Nuclear Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Hansen also served as a peer advisor on Pitt’s Freshman Engineering Leadership Team.

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AWARDS ACCOLADES The American Physical Society named Anna C. Balazs winner of the 2016 Polymer Physics Prize. The award, established in 1960, honors outstanding accomplishment in and excellence of contributions to polymer physics research.

Dr. Balazs, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, undertakes research related to developing theoretical and computational models that capture the behavior of polymeric materials, nanocomposites, and multicomponent fluids.

Dr. Balazs is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Materials Research Society. She was a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University. She has served on a number of editorial boards, was chair of the American Physical Society Division of Polymer Physics in 1999-2000, and received a Special Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation. In 2003, she received the Maurice Huggins Memorial Award of the Gordon Research Conference for outstanding contributions to polymer science. Recently, she received the Royal Society of Chemistry S F Boys – A Rahman Award (2015), the American Chemical Society Langmuir Lecture Award (2014), and the Mines Medal from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (2013).

Two Chem E faculty were selected as winners of the 2016 Energy Leadership Awards, presented by the Pittsburgh Business Times: Robert Enick, NETL ORISE Faculty Fellow, Covestro Professor and Vice Chair for Research; and Götz Veser, Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Energy. The program honors individuals who

have paved the way for the vibrant growth of the Pittsburgh region’s energy sector and recognizes outstanding performance in the western Pennsylvania energy industry, from academia and industry to policy and research. The recipients will be recognized at the Business Times’ Energy Gala, Thursday, May 26 at the Southpointe Hilton Garden Inn. Assistant Professor Susan Fullerton was awarded a 2016 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), which provide seed money for research by junior faculty at ORAU member institutions. The awards are intended to enrich the research and professional growth of young faculty and result in new funding opportunities. Dr. Fullerton and her research group use the interplay between ions and electrons to design next-generation electronic devices at the limit of scaling for memory, logic and energy storage. The Powe award will support neutron scattering measurements to characterize the structure of ion-containing polymers used in these devices. Prior to joining Pitt in fall 2015, Dr. Fullerton was a Research Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. She earned her Bachelor of Science and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University.

Prashant N. Kumta, the Edward R. Weidlein Chair Professor and Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and Oral Biology, received the 2016 Carnegie Science Award for Advanced

Manufacturing & Materials. At the cuttingedge of platform technology, Prashant Kumta and his colleagues have developed a family of biodegradable materials to repair severely damaged bones. Instead of repairing complicated fractures with bio-inert and non-degradable metal screws or plates, Kumta has developed a biocompatible and biodegradable metallic “fixation device” and injectable as well as 3-D printable “bone putty” that will resorb into the body after the bone has healed. Pending FDA approval, “bone putty” will be used to repair military and civilian injuries and debilitating diseases such as osteoporosis and bone cancer.

Steven Little, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, was elected a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Founded in 1968, BMES is an interdisciplinary professional society for biomedical engineering and bioengineering. Fellow status is awarded to Society members who demonstrate exceptional achievements and experience in the field of biomedical engineering, and a record of membership and participation in the Society.

The AIMBE College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the country. The most accomplished and distinguished engineering and medical school chairs, research directors, professors, innovators, and successful entrepreneurs, comprise the College of Fellows. Dr. Little holds eight U.S. patents and provisional applications for patents

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including new methods to fabricate controlled release vehicles in a high throughput fashion; dissolvable synthetic-vasculature; novel complex delivery vehicles; and a description of the first degradable, artificial cell. He has authored/coauthored 70 articles in highly prestigious archival journals in his fields of specialization (controlled release, biomimetic materials, tissue engineering/ regenerative medicine and drug delivery).

The American Physical Society (APS) has elected Professor Judith Yang to the position of Fellow.

APS President Homer Neal cited Yang’s selection: “For seminal contributions to in situ environmental

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transmission electron microscopy, the fundamental understanding of metal oxidation and the application of nanomaterials and catalysis.”

Dr. Yang joined 14 other members of the APS Division of Materials Physics to be named Fellows this year. The APS caps the number of new Fellows elected each year to one half of one percent of its 51,000 members internationally. The Fellowship committee evaluates each nomination based on a criteria of exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise, including outstanding research, application, leadership or service and contributions to education related to the field of physics.

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Last December, Dr. Yang received two National Science Foundation for research that will challenge classical theories of oxidation. By using electron microscopy capable of observing changes in real time, she will analyze the effects of oxidation on copper and the nano-structure of other metals used in a variety of industries.

Both projects take advantage of the Hitachi H9500 ETEM, a new environmental transmission electron microscope that arrived at Pitt in August 2015. Funding for this instrument was provided by a NSF-MRI grant awarded to Dr. Yang in 2013.

Distinguished Alumni Award continued from front page chemical engineering. Prior to this, he worked for several years as a research scientist for the Diamond Shamrock Corporation and sat on the faculty of the University of Akron. These experiences further developed his interest in electrochemical fundamentals and technologies.

His research addresses fundamental engineering and mechanistic issues of electrochemical systems/device design, development, and optimization. The technologies he has worked on include fuel cells, flow batteries, electrochemical capacitors, sensors, chemical synthesis and metal recovery, wastewater treatment, and high surface area electrode structures.

Dr. Savinell has been particularly active in developing and integrating new materials into electrochemical systems. He is co-inventor of the first membrane capable of practical proton conductivity at temperatures above 100°C at low relative humidity. This ground-breaking work has provided the inspiration for world-wide activity in developing high temperature polymer electrolytes for fuel cell and hydrogen pumping/purification applications. His recent work involves creating a flow battery primarily using iron and water – designed to improve the efficiency of the power grid and accelerate the addition of solar and wind power supplies. Even some of his early work on

flow batteries, hydrogen-bromine rechargeable fuel cells, and shunt current modeling are now again receiving attention because of the intense interest in large-scale energy storage for grid stability/robustness and renewable energy implementation.

Dr. Savinell has served in a number of leadership positions at Case Western Reserve including being the former director of the Yeager Center for Electrochemical Sciences, Associate Dean of Engineering, and Dean of Engineering. During his time as Dean of the Case School of Engineering

from 2000 to 2007, Dr. Savinell increased research funding and spearheaded the undergraduate research program Support of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors.

Dr. Savinell’s leadership in his research professional community includes past-vice president of the International Society of Electrochemistry, past-chair of the Electrolytic and Electrochemical Engineering Division of the Electrochemical Society, and the former North American editor of the Journal of Applied Electrochemistry.

Pictured from left are: Dean Holder, Dr. Savinell and Steven Little, Professor and Chair of Electrical and Petroleum Engineering.

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Student Start-up Wins $75,000 in Prizes

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lec Kaija, Blake Dube, and Mark Spitz have been capturing awards for their development of Medipod, a portable, lightweight oxygen-delivery system in the shape of a soda can.

Their proposed start-up, Aeronics, developed the Medipod to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, by giving patients easy access to medical-grade oxygen. The three captured the Pitt Innovation Challenge (finalists, $25,000), the Michael G. Wells Student Healthcare Entrepreneurship Competition (1st prize, $20,000), and the Kuzneski Innovation Cup (2nd prize, $5,000). These are in addition to winning the grand prize at the Randall Big Idea Competition earlier this year ($25,000), which brings their total for this year (so far) to $75,000 in prizes to help them launch their product.

UNIV E RSI T Y OF PI T T SBURGH | SWANS O N S C H O O L O F EN G I N EER I N G | C H EM E N EW S | FA LL 2016