Chemical Engineering Commons^™

Extraction, Preparation, And Characterization Of Alginate Biopolymer Films From Natural Seaweed, David Ly

Master's Theses

This study evaluates the use of naturally harvested seaweed from the Monterey Bay to produce a biodegradable film for food packaging applications. Two different film-forming methods were evaluated: solution casting and compression molding. The solution casting method using an alginate biopolymer produced the most consistent results. The seaweed biopolymer was extracted from the seaweed biomass using a modified method, resulting in a yield of 11-25 %. The highest yield was observed when using the lowest biomass concentration of 10 wt. %. The extracted alginate was then cast into films at different levels of glycerol plasticization (15-35 wt.%). The addition of …

Green Synthesis Of Carbonized Chitosan-Fe3o4-Sio2 Nano-Composite For Adsorption Of Heavy Metals From Aqueous Solutions, Dalia A. Ali Eng, Rinad Galal Ali Eng.

Chemical Engineering

Water pollution with heavy metals owing to industrial and agricultural activities have become a critical dilemma to humans, plants as well as the marine environment. Therefore, it is of great importance that the carcinogenic heavy metals present in wastewater to be eliminated through designing treatment technologies that can remove multiple pollutants. A novel green magnetic nano-composite called (Carbonized Chitosan-Fe3O4-SiO2) was synthesized using Co-precipitation method to adsorb a mixture of heavy metal ions included; cobalt (Co2+), nickel (Ni2+) and copper (Cu2+) ions from aqueous solutions. The novelty of this study was the synthesis of a new

nano-composite which was green with …

Environmental Impacts Potential Of Natural Gas Production Through Life Cycle Assessment, Akmal Al Afghani, Mochamad Adhiraga Pratama, Astryd Viandila Dahlan

Journal of Materials Exploration and Findings

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology used to evaluate potential environmental impacts in various industry sectors, including the oil and gas industry to quantify the environmental impacts and determine the processes that have significant impacts along their production cycle. This environmental impact study adheres to ISO 14040:2016 and 14044:2017 standards, using the ReCiPe methodology within a gate-to-gate scope to analyze potential environmental impacts of 1 MMSCFD natural gas production. The impact categories analyzed in this study are Global Warming Potential (GWP), Particulate Matter Formation (PM), Ozone Formation (OF), and Terrestrial Acidification (TA). The results of this study identified several …

Inspection Planning Of Subsea Pipeline Using Risk-Based Inspection, Ni Luh Triska Adelia, Badrul Munir, Johny Wahyuadi Soedarsono

Journal of Materials Exploration and Findings

Pipelines are an important tool in oil and gas exploration. Pipeline is a transmission and liquid collection lines, including their accessories, which transport fluids from one plant to another. In transmission and collection process, there is a possibility of failure which can have minor to major impact on personnel injury, the environment and interrupt the business process. To maintain safety and to prevent accidents, the source and cause of failure needs to be calculated. Risk-based inspection (RBI) is a method that can be used to calculate the risk and determine the inspection planning both schedule and method, by combining the …

Acousto-Dielectric Tweezers Enable Independent Manipulation Of Multiple Particles, Liang Shen, Zhenhua Tian, Kaichun Yang, Joseph Rich, Jinxin Zhang, Jianping Xia, Wesley Collyer, Brandon Lu, Nanjing Hao, Zhichao Pei, Chuyi Chen, Tony Jun Huang

Faculty Publications

Acoustic tweezers have gained substantial interest in biology, engineering, and materials science for their label-free, precise, contactless, and programmable manipulation of small objects. However, acoustic tweezers cannot independently manipulate multiple microparticles simultaneously. This study introduces acousto-dielectric tweezers capable of independently manipulating multiple microparticles and precise control over intercellular distances and cyclical cell pairing and separation for detailed cell-cell interaction analysis. Our acousto-dielectric tweezers leverage the competition between acoustic radiation forces, generated by standing surface acoustic waves (SAWs), and dielectrophoretic (DEP) forces, induced by gradient electric fields. Modulating these fields allows for the precise positioning of individual microparticles at points where …

Synthesis Of Uv-Blocking Titanium Oxide Films Via Remote-Type Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Cvd, Hayate Endo, Akira Shirakura, Shinya Kudo, Tetsuya Suzuki

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

This study aims to enhance UV resistance in plastics, focusing on polycarbonate (PC) and polypropylene (PP) commonly used in reuseable packaging. Traditional organic UV absorbers face safety and cost challenges, prompting our investigation into alternative methods. We utilized chemical vapor deposition (CVD), specifically Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Enhanced CVD (AP-PE-CVD), to apply titanium oxide (TiO₂) thin films. This innovative approach, using a remote-type AP-PE-CVD technique, enables coating on complex surfaces and 3D objects. The produced TiO2 films, containing over 20% titanium, showed a UV transmittance of 14.5% at 310 nm and effective UV blocking starting at 372 nm. The …

Unrefined And Milled Ilmenite As A Cost-Effective Photocatalyst For Uv-Assisted Destruction And Mineralization Of Pfas, Eustace Y. Fernando, Zhiming Zhang

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are fluorinated and refractory pollutants that are ubiquitous in industrial wastewater. Photocatalytic destruction of such pollutants with catalysts such as TiO2 and ZnO is an attractive avenue for removal of PFAS, but refined forms of such photocatalysts are expensive. This study, for the first time, utilized milled unrefined raw mineral ilmenite, coupled to UV-C irradiation to achieve mineralization of the two model PFAS compounds perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluoro octane sulfonic acid (PFOS). Results obtained using a bench-scale photocatalytic reactor system demonstrated rapid removal kinetics of PFAS compounds (>90% removal in less than 10 …

Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites For Sustainable Additive Manufacturing., Athira Nair Surendran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Carbon fiber is widely known for its exceptional strength, making it a sought-after material in composite manufacturing, especially with thermosets and thermoplastics. Its major applications span aerospace, wind turbines, sports equipment, automotive interior and exterior parts, robotics and medical equipment. Recently, carbon fiber filament manufacturing has gained attention due to the availability of desktop 3D printers and the versatility and customizability that comes with the realm of 3D printing. Commercial carbon fiber production, primarily from polyacrylonitrile (PAN), is energy-intensive and derived from crude oil, contributing to significant environmental impacts and poor recyclability. Alternatively, lignocellulosic natural fibers present a possible sustainable …

Meteorological Data Mining And Synthesis For Supplementing On-Site Data For Regulatory Compliance, Ben Sonpon, Shoaib Usman, Joseph Smith, Sarah Kovaleski, Jason Wibbenmeyer

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Many regulatory requirements add significant delay in the licensing of new nuclear power stations. One area of particular interest is the environmental impact of potential atmospheric release. the purpose of this research is to demonstrate effectiveness of meteorological data mining and synthesis from offsite locations to reduce need for onsite data, hence allowing rapid licensing. the automated procedures tested for data mining and extraction of meteorological data from multiple offsite sources and the data analytic tool developed for data fusion are presented here. Three important meteorological parameters from regulatory compliance are considered for this analysis: wind velocity, wind direction, and …

Frameworks For The Techno-Economic Assessment Of Membrane-Based Bioprocessing Platforms, Juan Jose Romero Conde

All Dissertations

This dissertation describes developing and implementing computational frameworks for simulating and optimizing purification processes in the biopharmaceutical industry. The framework performs techno-economic analyses to establish value propositions for new process alternatives, especially membrane technologies. Initially, the focus is developing a framework capable of simulating monoclonal antibody (mAb) capture using membrane and resin media in multi-column chromatography (MCC) platforms for continuous manufacturing. Subsequently, the impact of capture MCC is compared against other intensification strategies in established mAb manufacturing facilities. Finally, the framework application expands to simulate the purification of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for gene therapy.

Chapter 2 details the framework …

Developing A Comprehensive Genome-Scale Metabolic Model For The Arabidopsis Thaliana Root System, Lohani Esterhuizen

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) is the most well-established model plant to date. Being the first plant to have its genome mapped, studies on Arabidopsis have provided insurmountable insights into the physiological and biochemical nature of plants. Methods that allow us to computationally study the metabolism of organisms include the use of genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs). Despite its popularity, no GEM currently maps the metabolic activity in the root system of Arabidopsis, which is the first organ to face and respond to stress conditions in the soil. This work aims to develop and implement a comprehensive GEM of the Arabidopsis root system …

Meteorological Data Mining And Synthesis For Supplementing On-Site Data For Regulatory Compliance, Ben Sonpon, Shoaib Usman, Joseph Smith, Sarah Kovaleski, Jason Wibbenmeyer

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Many regulatory requirements add significant delay in the licensing of new nuclear power stations. One area of particular interest is the environmental impact of potential atmospheric release. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate effectiveness of meteorological data mining and synthesis from offsite locations to reduce need for onsite data, hence allowing rapid licensing. The automated procedures tested for data mining and extraction of meteorological data from multiple offsite sources and the data analytic tool developed for data fusion are presented here. Three important meteorological parameters from regulatory compliance are considered for this analysis: wind velocity, wind direction, and …

Enhancing Thermal Stability Of Perovskite Solar Cells Through Thermal Transition And Thin Film Crystallization Engineering Of Polymeric Hole Transport Layers, Sanggyun Kim, Sina Sabury, Carlo A. R. Perini, Tareq Hossain, Augustine O. Yusuf, Xiangyu Xiao, Ruipeng Li, Kenneth R. Graham, John R. Reynolds, Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Organic hole transport layers (HTLs) have been known to be susceptible to thermal stress, leading to poor long- term stability in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). We synthesized three 2,5-dialkoxy-substituted, 1,4-bis(2-thienyl)phenylene (TPT)-based conjugated polymers (CPs) linked with thiophene-based (thiophene (T) and thienothiophene (TT)) comonomers and evaluated them as HTLs in n-i-p PSCs. TPT-T (MB/C6), which has branched 2- methylbutyl and linear hexyl (MB/C6) side chains, emerged as a promising HTL candidate, enabling power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) greater than 15%. In addition, PSCs with this HTL showed an improvement in long-term stability at elevated temperatures of 65 °C when compared to those …

Dual Modification Of Reverse Osmosis Membranes With Nh2-Mil-125 And Functionalised Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes For Enhanced Nanoplastic Removal, Javad Farahbakhsh, Mohadeseh Najafi, Mitra Golgoli, Seyedeh Zahra Haeri, Mehdi Khiadani, Amir Razmjou, Masoumeh Zargar

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The present study describes a novel double-modified strategy for developing high-performance thin-film composite reverse osmosis (TFC-RO) membranes by incorporating titanium-based metal organic frameworks (NH2-MIL-125) and functionalised multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) into the support layer and selective layer, respectively. Initially, the support layer was subjected to successive modifications using NH2-MIL-125 mixed with polysulfone (PSF) in dimethylformamide DMF solution to investigate their impact on the performance and properties of the support layer and resultant TFC-RO membranes. Results indicated that the new structure of the modified support layer had significant influences on the developed TFC-RO membranes. Notably, the pristine PSF support exhibited a …

Recent Progress In Microencapsulation Technology And Its Applications In Petroleum Industry, Jingyi Zhu, Jiayu He, Jie Zhou, Zhaozhong Yang, Xiaogang Li, Ying Li, Zhenjiang You

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Oilfield chemicals play a pivotal role in optimizing the development of oil and gas resources. Emerging technologies for the controlled release of these chemicals have captured considerable interest among petroleum engineers. Microencapsulation, a method widely employed for controlled release in various industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture, is gaining traction in the realm of oil and gas exploitation. This paper provides a comprehensive review of encapsulation technologies, including solvent evaporation, coacervation, and polymerization methods. Special emphasis is placed on recent advancements in the applications of microcapsules within the oil and gas sector. Given the profound impact of release behavior …

Resolving The Size And Charge Of Small Particles: A Predictive Model Of Nanopore Mechanics, Samuel Bearden, Tigran M. Abramyan, Dmitry Gil, Jessica Johnson, Anton Murashko, Sergei Makaev, David Mai, Alexander Baranchikov, Vladimir Ivanov, Vladimir Reukov, Guigen Zhang

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The movement of small particles and molecules through nanopore membranes is widespread and has far-reaching implications. Consequently, the development of mathematical models is essential for understanding these processes on a micro level, leading to deeper insights. In this endeavor, we suggested a model based on a set of empirical equations to predict the transport of substances through a solid-state nanopore and the associated signals generated during their translocation. This model establishes analytical relationships between the ionic current and electrical double-layer potential observed during analyte translocation and their size, charge, and mobility in an electrolyte solution. This framework allows for rapid …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Lignin–Pva Hydrogels With Tunable Network Structures, Keturah Bethel

All Dissertations

The ability to directly tune the crosslinked network structure of hydrogels is crucial for their functional applications in various fields, such as water filtration, protein separation, and tissue engineering. By controlling the crosslink density of the hydrogel, one can directly alter the mesh size – i.e., the end-to-end distance between crosslink junctions – and, subsequently, directly alter the hydrogel performance. This work discusses the fabrication and characterization of soft composites containing the biopolymer, lignin, are discussed. Precisely, physically-crosslinked composite lignin–Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogels were fabricated via the freeze-thaw (F/T) pathway, whereby solutions containing specified amounts of PVA and lignin were …

Determination Of Binary Co2/H2 Adsorption Isotherms And Kinetics Over Porous Organic Cage Cc3 Via Zero-Length Column Technique, Jimmy D.L. Moreno, Kyle Newport, Ali A. Rownaghi, Fateme Rezaei

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Understanding the dynamics of mixed-gas adsorption is essential for industrial-scale adsorptive separations. Also, obtaining binary adsorption isotherms is essential to gain a better understanding of adsorbate-adsorbent interactions in multicomponent gas mixtures. Porous organic cages (POCs) are highly porous, crystalline materials, with a small average pore window that make them promising candidates for separation applications. In this work, we utilized zero-length column (ZLC) technique to not only determine the kinetics of CO₂/H₂ separation over CC3 but also obtain the binary adsorption isotherms. The ultra crystalline diffusivities of 1.49 x 10^–4 and 8.31 x 10^–5 cm^{2 …}

Examination And Improvement Of The Taguchi-Based Nanofluids Impact On Co2 Absorption Using Al2o3 Nanoparticles, Safa Waleed Shakir, Saif Saleh Hussein, Shaymaa Hasan Khazaal, Hyder Akram Al-Naseri, Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed, Rana Najah Hachim, Muthanna Hikmat Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, a batch absorption reactor was used to evaluate the nanofluid of a binary aqueous solution of monoethanolamine and 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (MEA/AMP) with nanoparticles of aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃) as a solvent used to remove carbon dioxide (CO₂) from simulated flue gas. Furthermore, the application of the Taguchi experiment design method determined the optimal conditions for the absorption process. This research focuses on the CO₂ absorption process and the optimal conditions related to nanoparticle addition. The main effects of using nanofluid were investigated. The concentration of nanoparticles, nanoparticle size, and stirrer speeds were …

Tectonic Implications Of Seismic Anisotropy Layering Beneath The Southern Tibetan Plateau Revealed By Integrated Shear Wave Splitting And Receiver Function Analyses, Cong Shen, Stephen S. Gao, Fansheng Kong, Kelly H. Liu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To investigate continental dynamics underneath the south-central Tibetan plateau, which composes the Himalayan, Lhasa, and Qiangtang blocks, we have conducted comprehensive examinations of seismic azimuthal anisotropy in the crust using receiver functions (RFs) and crustal and mantle anisotropy using teleseismic shear wave splitting (SWS) analysis. In the Qiangtang block, the observed predominantly E-W fast orientations from RF and SWS analyses with similar magnitude are interpreted as resulting from eastward crustal flow with minor contributions from the mantle. In the Lhasa block, the crustal anisotropy is approximately N-S oriented, which is parallel to the strike of rift basins and southward crustal …