New CMET Director's Experiment is Under Way Aboard the International Space Station
A University of Delaware experiment is under way aboard the International Space Station. The experiment is on structural and rheological transitions of field-responsive fluids in microgravity and was transported to the space station by the space shuttle Discovery, which lifted off in October.
Eric Furst, UD associate professor of chemical engineering and director of the Center for Molecular and Engineering Thermodynamics, along with his postdoctoral researcher Paula Vasquez developed the experiment as part of the InSPACE2 (Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions) program.
Furst said a long-standing aim of complex fluid rheology has been to identify the fundamental roles that interactions on nanometer and micrometer length scales play in determining the rheological properties of these materials. Among the many types of complex fluid systems of interest, he said magnetorheological (MR) fluids provide a stunning example. Read more...
CMET student honored during the American Chemical Society's 233rd national meeting and exposition
(back, left) and Le Zhang (front, right)
with presenters from other colleges and
universities at the American Chemical
Society’s meeting in Chicago
Matthew E. Helgeson, a grad student in the College of Engineering's Center for Molecular & Engineering Thermodynamics, and Le Zhang (also a grad student in the College of Engineering) were two University of Delaware graduate students honored during the American Chemical Society's 233rd national meeting and exposition held on March 25-29 in Chicago.
Helgeson and Le Zhang were selected to make presentations during the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium, held as part of the ACS meeting.
Helgeson, who is working toward his doctorate in the College of Engineering, made a presentation on “Formation and Mechanics of Electrospun Polymer Jets.” Helgeson conducts research as part of a group led by Norman Wagner, Alvin B. and Julia O. Stiles Professor of Chemical Engineering. The group is studying the microstructure and dynamics of a variety of materials, including surfactants, colloids, polymers and nanostructured materials.
"National recognition by the American Chemical Society for research excellence in polymer science further confirms UD's status as a world-class institution for teaching and research in polymer science and engineering,” Wagner said. “Matt truly deserves this award, and the other faculty, graduate students and undergraduates who have worked with him in the laboratory can also take pride in his achievements. " Read more...
CMET director is honored with professorship at the National University of Singapore (NUS)
Stanley I. Sandler, Henry Belin du Pont Chair of Chemical Engineering at UD, will be working in three different academic jobs on three continents this year. In addition to serving on the UD faculty and as Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia where he was the Miegunyah Fellow during his 2003 sabbatical, Sandler recently received another honor as newly appointed ExxonMobil Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
“This year, I will take University of Delaware students to the University of Melbourne for Winter Session courses; in the summer I spend a month at the University of Singapore, and then I have my 'real job' here at the University of Delaware,” Sandler said.
Sandler's expertise is in thermodynamics, the purification and separation of chemicals and pharmaceuticals and supercomputer simulation. According to the announcement of the appointment from NUS, Sandler will work in “the area of molecular engineering of transport and thermodynamics in nanostructured materials,” enhancing NUS's program in “the synthesis of nanostructured, functionalized materials and process engineering modeling.”
Following a three-week stay at NUS, Sandler said he was impressed by the faculty and facilities there, the research and instructional laboratories, the extent of government funding, the teaching and research infrastructure the university provides and the computational facilities and virtual learning environment for students. “One of my goals is to encourage ties between Delaware and Singapore,” he said. “I also would like to bring some of the innovations used at NUS to the University of Delaware.” Read more...