Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Electrocoagulation For Sulfate Removal, Hailey Marie Dunsworth

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the United States, one of the major rising issues is water shortage, especially in Western, inland states with arid climates. Not only do deficiencies exist for potable water, but for irrigation and agricultural purposes as well. Currently, the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico has four separate wells that are being used for experimentation. A major concern is that a considerable amount of this water can be used as another reliable source for potable water if treated. The WERC-A-HOLICS have identified two possible methods to alleviate this problem. Electrocoagulation (EC) is a technology useful for …

Radiative Cooling To The Night Sky, Alexander R. Enderlin

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Silicon wafer fabrication facilities require a significant amount of temperate cooling water to meet high internal cooling loads. The tertiary chilled water systems operate year round to fulfil the constant cooling load needed for production. Conventional chillers require a large amount of electricity to cool the water by the vapor compression cycle. As energy costs increase and environmental stewardship becomes the norm in industry, sustainable technologies are needed to chill process cooling water without the significant energy consumption of today’s chillers. Night sky radiation cools a medium by radiating heat from a warm medium to the colder night sky. The …

Impregnation And Adsorption Of Rare Earth Elements On Amberlite Xad-7, Bobby G. Hampton

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Beads were washed then impregnated with an organophosphorous extractant D2EHPA. The washing process, as well as factors in the impregnation process were studied. Water was deemed sufficient to prewash the beads before use over small and large amounts of acid with acetone. The impregnation of beads at an Amberlite D2EHPA ratio of 1:1 was determined to be best. Absorption isotherms of Neodymium were the first to be studied. By testing different concentrations, Amberlite was determined to absorb the max amount at 4000 ppm. The pH values from 2-7 were determined to have no effect on the amount of Neodymium absorbed …

Separatome Of Escherichia Coli Analysis Of Deae Chromatography As Ph Of Loading Changes, Rita E. Tejada Vaprio

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Recombinant DNA technology is used to produce therapeutics in host organisms and undergoes several purification steps before it can be used by the end user. Escherichia coli which has been widely studied has been the microorganism of choice mainly because of its low production costs. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the optimal conditions to purify a protein of interest with antifungal properties. Varying the loading pH alters the overall charge of both the target protein and host cell proteins (HCPs). Identifying genomic proteins that remain bound regardless of loading pH on DEAE columns will guide future …

Electrocoagulation For Sulfate Removal, Gina Marie Densmore

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the United States, one of the major rising issues is water shortage, especially in Western, inland states with arid climates. Not only do deficiencies exist for potable water, but for irrigation and agricultural purposes as well. Currently, the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico has four separate wells that are being used for experimentation. A major concern is that a considerable amount of this water is currently wasted by being sent to evaporation ponds without any sort of treatment for human consumption. The WERC-A-HOLICS have identified two possible methods to alleviate this problem. Electrocoagulation (EC) …

Use Of Peptoid Microspheres To Improve Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (Elisa) Microarray For Early Cancer Detection, Valerie Del Carmen Reyez Loayza

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The pursuit of an efficient and economical technique for early detection of cancer has led to the development of sophisticated biosensors for antigen analysis. As biosensors become more complex, coatings are necessary and important. The preferred coatings need to have the following properties: high surface area for binding, resistance to biofouling, and flexible synthesis. The focus of this project is to determine whether using peptoid microsphere-coated glass slides in the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) microarray technique is better than using commercially available glass slides. Current microarray slides are coated with reactive groups, such as amines, epoxides, or aldehydes. It …

Ultrasonic Hoguanauts Werc Task 2: Separation Of Oil From Water, Jesus Eduardo Martinez

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Environmental

Investigating Polymer Based Scaffolds For Urinary Bladder Tissue Engineering, Srikanth Sivaraman

All Dissertations

Current surgical treatments for urinary bladder disorders rely on the use of autologous intestinal segments and xenografts such as small intestinal submucosa, which suffer from various complications including mechanical mismatch and graft shrinkage. Despite early promises of bladder tissue engineering, a recent report of unsuccessful clinical trials suggests that the technology needs further improvement and evaluation through animal models of bladder dysfunction. Therefore, the objective of this doctoral dissertation was to characterize a viable bladder tissue scaffold (patch) which mimics the mechanical properties of the bladder, maintains the phenotype of the BSMC seeded in it and finally, tested in vivo …

Thermal Invisibility Based On Scattering Cancellation And Mantle Cloaking, M Farhat, P.-Y. Chen, H Bagci, C. Amra, S Guenneau, A Alù

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research Publications

We theoretically and numerically analyze thermal invisibility based on the concept of scattering cancellation and mantle cloaking. We show that a small object can be made completely invisible to heat diffusion waves, by tailoring the heat conductivity of the spherical shell enclosing the object. This means that the thermal scattering from the object is suppressed, and the heat flow outside the object and the cloak made of these spherical shells behaves as if the object is not present. Thermal invisibility may open new vistas in hiding hot spots in infrared thermography, military furtivity, and electronics heating reduction.

Recent Research Progress For Non-Pt-Based Oxygen Reduction Reaction Electrocatalysts In Fuel Cell, Ping Song, Ming-Bo Ruan, Jing Liu, Guang-Jun Ran, Wei-Lin Xu

Journal of Electrochemistry

The expensive Pt-based catalyst suffers from its susceptibility to time-dependent drift, methanol crossover, and carbon monoxide (CO) deactivation, which will block the large-scale commercial application of fuel cells. It is, therefore, necessary to develop efficient, low-cost, highly stable non-precious metal oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalysts with high catalytic performance. Here, we will pay attention to the research progress of non-precious metal and heteroatom-doped (N, B, P, S, F) metal-free ORR catalysts. Importantly, we mainly focus on the work developed by Xu’s group with the Fe-based non-precious metal and F/NF-doped metal-free ORR catalysts. The purpose of these works is to improve …

Preparation And Properties Of Binary Oxides CoXCr1-XO3/2 Electrocatalysts For Oxygen Evolution Reaction, Tai-Lai Yang, Wen-Yan Dong, Hui-Min Yang, Li Zhang, Zhen-Hai Liang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Binary metal mixed oxides of Co and Cr with nominal compositional formulas, Co_xCr_1-xO_3/2 (x=0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0), were obtained by thermal decomposition method. The morphologies, crystal forms and valence states of the catalyst powders were analyzed by SEM, XRD and XPS, respectively. And the electrochemical properties, overpotentials and stabilities of Co_xCr_1-xO_3/2 electrodes for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an alkaline solution were evaluated by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), staircase voltammetry and chronoamperometry, respectively. The results indicated that the mixtures of Co₃O₄ and eskolaite-Cr_{2 …}

Synthesis And Electrochemical Properties Of Cnts/V2O5 Hollow Microspheres, Liang Hao, Lai-Fa Shen, Jie Wang, Jia-Jia Zhu, Xiao-Chen Zhao, Xiao-Gang Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

The carbon nanotubes/vanadium oxides (CNTs/V₂O₅) hollow microspheres (VOC) were prepared via solvothermal process. The effects of the ratio for CNTs to V₂O₅ on the morphologies, structures and electrochemical performances were systemically investigated. The results indicate that CNTs dramatically enhanced the rate performances of VOC composite electrodes. When the ratio of CNTs is 7.1%, the VOC composite electrode exhibited the best electrochemical performance, which delivered a specific capacitance of 346 F·g^-1 at 0.5 A·g^-1 and maintained 75% at 8 A·g^-1 in 5 mol L^-1 LiNO₃. A hybrid capacitor …

Porous Co3O4 Hollow Nanospheres Cathode Catalyst For High-Capacity And Long-Cycle Li-Air Batteries, Tong Liu, Na Li, Qing-Chao Liu, Xin-Bo Zhang

Journal of Electrochemistry

In this paper, a high specific surface area of porous Co3O4 hollow nanospheres was successfully synthesized via hydrothermal carbonization at 140 °C, followed by calcination using cobalt nitrate hexahydrate (Co(NO3)2·6H2O), hexamethylenetetramine (HMT), sucrose, and sodium citrate (Na3C6H5O7). The porous Co3O4 hollow nanospheres consisted of nanoparticles with high specific surface area of mesoporous structure, and could provide active reaction sites for OER and ORR. When used as lithium-air battery cathode catalyst, the Co3O4/Super P (SP) electrode exhibited excellent cycle performance, resulting in high capacity and long life of lithium-air batteries.

Syntheses And Electrochemical Performances Of Li4Ti5O12 Anode Materials For Lithium Ion Battery, Yong-Long Zhang, Xue-Bu Hu, Yao-Qiong Wang, Dong-Hai Huang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Series of spinel lithium titanate (Li₄Ti₅O₁₂) materials were synthesized by one-step solid-state reaction using lithium acetate and TiO₂ as raw materials under different temperatures (750/800/850 °C) and atmospheres (N₂/air). The as-prepared Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ materials were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, cyclic voltammotry and charge-discharge test to analyze their crystal structures, microstructures and electrochemical performances. The results show that the Li₄Ti₅O₁₂（L-800N）material obtained at 800 °C under nitrogen atmosphere exhibited better electrochemical performance and smaller particle size. The initial …

Simulation Of Deformation Of Red Blood Cells, Tai-Hsien Wu

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Using simulation to discuss the deformation of cells is not only efficient, but also inexpensive. In this study, a red blood cell (RBC) model is introduced which is simple but rigorous. This RBC model has been stretched to examine its properties and its results agree well with an experiment which was conducted in 2003. Therefore, the model allows researchers to conduct studies related to deformation of RBCs or investigate properties of RBCs. Based on this RBC model, we can couple it with the computational fluid dynamics to investigate the interaction between cells and flows, as well as mimic other cells …

Life-Cycle Energy And Ghg Emissions Of Forest Biomass Harvest And Transport For Biofuel Production In Michigan, Fengli Zhang, Dana M. Johnson, Jinjiang Wang

College of Business Publications

High dependence on imported oil has increased U.S. strategic vulnerability and prompted more research in the area of renewable energy production. Ethanol production from renewable woody biomass, which could be a substitute for gasoline, has seen increased interest. This study analysed energy use and greenhouse gas emission impacts on the forest biomass supply chain activities within the State of Michigan. A life-cycle assessment of harvesting and transportation stages was completed utilizing peer-reviewed literature. Results for forest-delivered ethanol were compared with those for petroleum gasoline using data specific to the U.S. The analysis from a woody biomass feedstock supply perspective uncovered …

Substantiate Percent Yield Within Aerosol Personal Care Plant, Gregory Maxwell

Honors Theses

The project identified losses of bulk product throughout the mix and packaging process substantiating percent yield. Support data for yield calculations was found by mapping multiple equipment trains, collecting and weighing samples, tracking waste streams, and executing engineering studies. The completed studies identified and verified product loss ensuring the accuracy of yield calculations. This project identified potential cost savings to the facilities.

The Effects Of Colorimetry And Spectroscopy Using The Iso M0, M1 And M2 Modes, Kaylee Flannery

Honors Theses

The use of Optical Brightening Agents (OBA’s) in printing and proofing papers has drastically increased and, while the use of OBA’s has improved the appearance for end-use consumers, it represents great challenges to those attempting to successfully color manage the print. Therefore, standards have been created in order to assist in the measurement of these papers, and can be found within ISO 13655-2009: Spectral Measurement and Colorimetric Computation for Graphic Arts Images. This newly defined measurement standard is referred to as the “M” series. While this new standard has its advantages, it also poses some disadvantages. This report will …

Flavour Chemicals In Electronic Cigarette Fluids, Peyton A. Tierney, Clarissa D. Karpinski, Jessica E. Brown, Wentai Luo, James F. Pankow

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Most e-cigarette liquids contain flavour chemicals. Flavour chemicals certified as safe for ingestion by the Flavor Extracts Manufacturers Association may not be safe for use in e-cigarettes. This study identified and measured flavour chemicals in 30 e-cigarette fluids.

Methods: Two brands of single-use e-cigarettes were selected and their fluids in multiple flavour types analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. For the same flavour types, and for selected confectionary flavours (eg, bubble gum and cotton candy), also analysed were convenience samples of e-cigarette fluids in refill bottles from local ‘vape’ shops and online retailers.

Results: In many liquids, total flavour chemicals …

Enhancing Grain Boundary Ionic Conductivity In Mixed Ionic–Electronic Conductors, Ye Lin, Shumin Fang, Dong Su, Kyle S. Brinkman, Fanglin Chen

Faculty Publications

Mixed ionic–electronic conductors are widely used in devices for energy conversion and storage. Grain boundaries in these materials have nanoscale spatial dimensions, which can generate substantial resistance to ionic transport due to dopant segregation. Here, we report the concept of targeted phase formation in a Ce0.8Gd0.2O2−δ–CoFe2O4 composite that serves to enhance the grain boundary ionic conductivity. Using transmission electron microscopy and spectroscopy approaches, we probe the grain boundary charge distribution and chemical environments altered by the phase reaction between the two constituents. The formation of an emergent phase successfully avoids segregation of the Gd dopant and depletion of oxygen vacancies …