What's New in CCST...

Prof. Jingguang Chen Receives the 2008 Award for Excellence in Catalysis from the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York

Jingguang Chen, Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering

Prof. Jingguang Chen is the recipient of the 2008 Award for Excellence in Catalysis, which is presented by the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York. He is being recognized for his work in understanding the physical and chemical properties of bimetallic and metal carbide surfaces, which has inspired new applications of fundamental studies to catalytic and fuel cell processes.

Prof. Chen is the cofounder and principal investigator of the Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium at the National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory. In addition to being a member of AIChE, he is a member of the board of directors of the North American Catalysis Society and also serves as the catalysis secretary-general of the American Chemical Society.

Prof. Chen will present an Excellence in Catalysis Award lecture on May 21^st at a ceremony to be sponsored by the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York. For more details, visit www.nycsweb.org.

Jingguang Chen is Named the Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering

"It is my great pleasure to announce that Professor Jingguang Chen has been named the Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering effective January 1, 2008," interim dean of the College of Engineering Michael Chajes reported.

"Dr. Chen has made significant research and contributions to the areas of catalysis and materials science, and has also made exceptional contributions to the mission of the Chemical Engineering Department. He has pioneered and further developed important areas of chemical engineering related to the rational design of carbide and bimetallic catalysts with desirable catalytic activity and selectivity, as well as work in the utilization of Near-Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS) to characterize the catalytic properties of transition metal compounds."

Mark your calendars for 4 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29^th, when the Department of Chemical Engineering will host a reception celebrating Jingguang's tenure as the director of CCST as well as being named the Claire D. LeClaire Professor of Chemical Engineering!

CCST Grad Student Attends Sustainability Conference in Alaska

Two students from UD’s first IGERT cohort, Dan Esposito and Meghan Schulz, attended the first Conference for Sustainability IGERTs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The student-run workshop involved students and professors from IGERT programs nationwide.

Two students in UD's National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program recently participated in a conference on social-ecological sustainability held, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Attending the conference, which focused on integrating sciences to understand social-ecological systems, were doctoral candidates Daniel Esposito (chemical engineering) and Meghan Schulz (materials science and engineering).

Conference objectives included learning about delivering or taking integrated doctoral training in the areas of social-ecological sustainability. Participants also were encouraged to share the lessons learned with those in other IGERT programs and with the broader public. IGERT is a program developed by the National Science Foundation to improve the graduate experience by providing interdisciplinary graduate training for students who wish to pursue careers in the sciences, mathematics, engineering or technology. Topics at the conference included sustainability, in terms of definitions, applications and perspectives in the modern world, as well as the varying roles of science in the sustainability process.

The conference concluded with a tour of Chena Hot Springs Resort--which includes an innovative geothermal power plant, hydroponic greenhouse and spectacular ice museum--and with a relaxing soak in the hot springs.

“We talked about ensuring and meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the needs of the future,” Esposito said. “The main idea was to encourage people to learn about what goes on in other disciplines. We came up with some really neat discussions.”

Other conference topics included balancing breadth and depth in graduate sustainability studies and the challenge of doing integrated doctoral studies.

“IGERT and sustainable energy is about more than science and engineering, even though that is a big part of the program,” Esposito said. “We draw on engineering, physics, chemistry, economics and the social sciences, as well as UD's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy.”

Poster presentations and group discussions addressed the development of sustainability courses and the introduction of sustainability into the campus culture, Schulz said. Read more...

CCST Professors Win $4.6 Million DOE Grant for Fuel Cell Research

Jingguang Chen (left), professor of chemical engineering and director of UD’s Center for Catalytic Science and Technology, and Brian Willis, assistant professor of chemical engineering, are working in conjunction with major research labs across the country to improve hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Professors Jingguang Chen and Brian Willis of chemical engineering are part of a research team that has been awarded a $4.6 million research grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to find ways in which hydrogen fuel cells can be made less costly and more stable by using materials such as tungsten carbide modified with low concentrations of platinum instead of pure platinum. They will be working in conjunction with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Ballard Power Systems, a fuel cell manufacturer.

Currently hydrogen fuel cells use pure platinum as the cathode electrocatalyst, which is costly due to limited supply and is unstable because it gradually loses activity by making larger particles. The UD research team aims to find less expensive and more stable alternatives to replace pure platinum catalysts. The proposed research was based primarily on promising results from a decade of UD research on the activity and stability of tungsten carbide and the use of platinum with tungsten carbide as an electrocatalyst.

“Tungsten, which is more abundant than platinum, is used to make tungsten carbides, which can potentially be very stable. We have been doing research in this area for about 10 years and tungsten carbides are probably the only feasible alternative material,” Chen said. “The Department of Energy needs to reduce the cost and enhance the stability of fuel cells and our goal is to use a small amount of platinum and blend it with tungsten carbide to achieve that.”

The UD team will work with PNNL and ORNL researchers on the development of larger scales of the catalytic materials and researchers from Ballard Power Systems will perform tests for the commercial feasibility of the new electrocatalysts. Read more...

UD Engineers Receive Major Grant for Energy Research

Dionisios Vlachos, UD professor of chemical engineering

Researchers at the University of Delaware have received a $960,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to identify low-cost, nano-sized catalysts — tiny amounts of metal compounds — that can spur the chemical conversion of liquid fuels into hydrogen for powering cars to heating homes. The project, to be completed over the next three years, is part of DOE’s effort to develop advanced technologies that can supply future energy and transportation systems with affordable hydrogen, with significantly reduced or near-zero emissions.

The UD research team will be the first to demonstrate new “high throughput” methods of screening potentially hundreds to thousands of metal compounds at the nanoscale — particles as small as a few atoms in size — to reveal the most promising triggers for converting liquid fuels to hydrogen.

Chemical engineers Dionisios Vlachos, Jochen Lauterbach and Douglas Buttrey, all in the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology in the UD College of Engineering, are leading the research. The project also involves collaborators from Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Brookhaven is one of 10 national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by DOE.

“Most fuel cells for vehicular applications and auxiliary power units require onboard the efficient, cheap, and environmentally benign generation of high-quality hydrogen,” Vlachos, who is coordinating the research, said. “The overall objective of our work is to develop a framework for the discovery of low-cost, robust and active nano-catalysts that will enable efficient hydrogen production.” Read more...

How does a fuel cell work? Click on the following image to launch the animation, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy.

UD Scientists Discover New Class of Polymers

Chris Snively, UD chemist (front)
Jochen Lauterbach, UD professor of chemical engineering

They said it couldn't be done.

And that's what really motivated UD polymer chemist Chris Snively and Jochen Lauterbach, professor of chemical engineering at UD.

For years, polymer chemistry textbooks have stated that a whole class of little molecules called 1,2-disubstituted ethylenes could not be transformed into polymers--the stuff of which plastics and other materials are made.

However, the UD scientists were determined to prove the textbooks wrong. As a result of their persistence, the researchers have discovered a new class of ultra-thin polymer films with potential applications ranging from coating tiny microelectronic devices to plastic solar cells. Read more...