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| Center for Catalytic Science & Technology | ||||||||
| Comprised of the following departments: Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering :: Chemistry & Biochemistry :: Materials Science & Engineering | ||||||||
The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded the University of Delaware $1.3 million for continued catalysis research using facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).
The three-year grant builds on work initiated by UD Prof. Jingguang Chen in 2005 when he co-founded the synchrotron catalysis consortium (SCC). SCC promotes the use of synchrotron techniques for cutting-edge catalysis research under in-situ conditions. Chen is the consortium’s lead principal investigator.
Synchrotron spectroscopies demonstrate unique advantages over conventional techniques, including higher detection sensitivity and molecular specificity, faster detection rate and more in-depth information about structural, electronic and catalytic properties under actual reaction conditions.
Since 2005, the SCC has designed over a dozen specialized in situ reaction cells and advanced optics particularly tailored to catalysis research; work that has impacted more than 100 U.S. research groups in the catalysis community.
DOE recently invested $1 billion in a stronger synchrotron installation at BNL. Under the current renewal, Chen’s group will aid the transition to the new synchrotron system, enabling further insight into the chemical and physical structure of materials.
“The consortium’s role is to ensure that catalysis remains well represented in this new synchrotron facility,” remarked Chen.
Catalysis has played a significant role in the chemical and petroleum industries over the past several decades, and more recently has been applied to a number of new areas, including environmental and bioengineering applications.
UD has had an active and vital research program in catalysis since the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology (CCST) was founded in 1978. Chen and his colleagues are investigating the use of less-expensive, more stable catalytic materials for applications ranging from fuel cells to biomass utilization.
Jingguang Chen is the Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the co-director of the DOE Energy Frontier Research Center at UD. He served as the director of CCST from 2000 through 2007 and as the interim director of the UD Energy Institute (UDEI) from 2008 through 2010.
Anatoly Frenkel, professor of physics at Yeshiva University, and Radoslav Adzic, senior chemist at BNL, are co-principal investigators on the grant. UD research team members on location full-time at BNL include Emily Carino, Ned Marinkovic and Adele Wang.
Article by Karen B. Roberts
Thomas F. Degnan, Jr., of ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company and a University of Delaware/CCST alum, is the 2012 recipient of the ACS Award in Industrial Chemistry sponsored by the ACS Division of Business Development and Management and the ACS Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. Mr. Degnan will be honored at an Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, in conjunction with the 243rd ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Yushan Yan joined the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department in July 2011, as Distinguished Professor of Engineering and is now part of the CCST faculty. Yushan received his bachelor's degree in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1988. After studying for a few years at the Dalian Institute of Physical Chemistry, he moved to the United States where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1995 and 1997, respectively. He worked at Allied Signal for two years before joining the faculty of the University of California at Riverside where he also served as Presidential Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department from 2008 to 2011 before joining the faculty of the University of Delaware.
We are delighted to have Yushan at the CCST. His research program has produced multiple and important innovations in the science and application of zeolites and other porous materials into unconventional areas such as water purification, low-k electronics, corrosion resistance zeolite membranes and novel electrochemical systems. He has been a pioneer in the development of novel concepts in electrochemical energy conversion and has developed effective and stable hydroxide-based exchange polymer membranes. These materials have great potential for novel applications in fuel cells, batteries and other electrochemical devices. He is the inventor of a large number of issued or pending patents, several of which he has licensed to form startup companies. He is the recipient of numerous awards including recently the Breck Award from the International Zeolite Association and the 27th Outstanding Alumni Lecture, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The CCST faculty is very enthusiastic about Yushan’s contributions to catalysis and catalysis technology and look forward to working with him in the years to come.
Electrocatalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Chemical Fuels. Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are propelling research forward on renewable energy. Joel Rosenthal, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, will explore the development of nickel and palladium electrocatalysts that will freely give away electrons when they react with carbon dioxide, thus chemically reducing the greenhouse gas into energy-rich carbon monoxide or methanol fuels.
Novel Nanoporous Cathode Material for Lithium-ion Batteries. Feng Jiao, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, is working to develop novel cathode materials to boost the energy storage of lithium-ion batteries, which are used in items ranging from laptops to electric cars. He is exploring a new synthetic method, ionothermal synthesis, for preparing lithium manganese phosphates with 3D nanoporous structures. The material’s porosity would enable the removal and re-insertion of lithium ions from/into the 3D channels at high current density.
READ FULL UDAILY ARTICLE
Professor Jingguang Chen, Claire D. LeClaire Professor at the University of Delaware, is the recipient of Catalysis Club of Chicago's 2011 Herman Pines Award. The award is presented annually to recognize an individual who has made significant contribution to catalysis in either fundamental research or industrial processes. The award includes a plaque, an honorarium of $1,000, and travel reimbursement as a plenary speaker at 2011 Catalysis Club of Chicago Spring Symposium. The award will be presented during the symposium at BP Research Center, Naperville, IL on May 19, 2011.
Professor Jingguang Chen is a world leader in surface science studies of carbide and bimetallic catalysts and their industrial applications. He has made great leaps toward closing the long standing, well-known materials and pressure gaps in heterogeneous catalysis that are essential to convert fundamental surface science studies into industrial practice. This has been achieved by a unique combination of surface science, theoretical modeling, catalysis and in-situ reactor studies leading to the development of novel concepts and catalytic materials for a wide range of chemical reactions. In parallel, Prof. Chen has excelled in a variety of leadership roles to advance surface science and catalysis. He has published over 200 papers in various catalysis and surface science journals and written critical reviews for several leading review journals, including Chemical Reviews and Surface Science Reports. He is the inventor or co-inventor of 16 United States Patents. As an indication of his high visibility, he has given over two hundred invited and keynote lectures.
Jingguang G. Chen, Claire D. LeClaire Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, was quoted in an Angewandte press release on October 15, and an R&D Magazine article on October 18, about his research introducing a new way to save platinum commonly used as a catalyst in hydrogen production. Chen's paper, entitled “Low-Cost Hydrogen Evolution Catalysts Based on Monolayer Platinum on Tungsten Monocarbide (WC) Substrates,” which supports this research, will be published as a cover feature in the journal, Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Co-authors of the paper include Robert W. Birkmire, professor in materials science and director of the Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC); Kevin D. Dobson, IEC research associate; students Daniel V. Esposito and Sean T. Hunt and Alan L. Stottlemyer, and Brian E. McCandless, IEC associate scientist. READ FULL UDAILY ARTICLE
Congratulations to Mike Salciccioli who has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 Eastman Chemical Award. Mike is in his 4th year working with Dr. Dion Vlachos. The presentation of the award will take place during our annual symposium on October 6, 2011 at Clayton Hall.
Richard F. Heck, the Willis F. Harrington Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Heck, 79, was honored alongside fellow researchers Akira Suzuki, 80, of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, and Ei-Ichi Negishi, 75, of Purdue University, “for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.” They will share a $1.5 million award.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences during a press conference held this morning in Stockholm. The Nobel laureates are scheduled to present their lectures December 8, 2010.
According to the Nobel statement, the scientists were honored for discovering “more efficient ways of linking carbon atoms together to build the complex molecules that are improving our everyday lives.”
"This is a tremendous accomplishment for Prof. Heck and his colleagues, acknowledging the development of a tremendously sophisticated tool that will aid scientists to make potential cancer drugs and medicines," UD Provost Tom Apple said.
Douglas Taber, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who has known Heck as a colleague since 1982, explained the importance of his work, saying, "All of pharmaceutical chemistry and photolithography, the making of computer chips, depends on carbon bond formation. His [Heck's] contribution was to make that bond catalytic in the expensive metal, making large-scale industrial production affordable. When DNA sequencing became important, Heck chemistry made the coupling of organic dyes to the DNA bases possible."
