Predicting Key Residues Relevant To Hiapp Fibril Stability Using Permuted Residue Minimal Distance Pairs Of Riapp And Hiapp Dimers, Zak Kohler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In order to discover the most significant residues involved in hIAPP fibril formation, Replica Exchange Molecular Dynamics (REMD) trajectories of both fibril forming hIAPP dimers and non-fibril-forming rIAPP dimers were analyzed. An import heuristic for this is the minimum distance between the peptides. To gain a greater resolution than the standard center of mass distance or 1-1, 2-2, etc.\ residue distances, every permutation of residue distance between molecules of the dimer was measured ranked. It was found that while the rIAPP had a single favored contact, (26 10), hIAPP appeared to have a network of at least three significant contacts: …

Effect Of Nanofiber Morphology On Pvdf Air Filter Performance, Andrew W. Marton

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) can be formed into small nanofibers by electrospinning that are useful for a variety of applications. Air filters produced with PVDF are known to capture ionic particles with high efficiency. Existing studies have focused on the effects of electrospinning conditions on nanofiber morphology. In this study fibers were generated with varying morphologies. Air filters were then made from each sample and then characterized by TSI. Air filters were found to have increased resistances relative to their capture efficiencies according to particle diameter. Capture efficiencies did not correlate strongly with particle diameter, and the presence of beads in …

Filtration Of Aerosolized Oils With Layered Filter Media And Drainage Channels, Corey A. Boldon

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this experiment is to compare the efficiency of four different filter media with two different drainage channel materials when filtering out aerosolized oil. The filter media include 2 micron stainless steel fibers, 6.5 micron stainless steel fibers, 2 micron woven glass fibers, and 6 micron woven glass fibers. The drainage channel materials are 500 micron Teflon (PTFE) and nylon mesh.

One major application that this research is targeted towards is air compressors. Air compressors use lubricating oil to minimize wear and corrosion. During operation some of this lubricating oil is aerosolized into the outgoing air stream. Inhalation …

Iso: Understanding Elective International Certification, Lauren R. Kukwa

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this paper is to investigate elective certification specifically as it pertains to the Process Engineering II capstone project assigned at the University of Akron in the Spring Semester of 2015. The standards for certification are those needed to obtain certification in International Organization for Standardization’s 9000:2005 Quality Management standard. The ethics of a Chemical Engineering position as it pertains to the project will also be presented and similarities between elective certification and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Code of Ethics will be noted.

Optimization Of Polydopamine Coatings, Helen C. Terrill Ms.

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Polydopamine coatings were fabricated onto the surfaces of glass slides, silicon wafers, and Teflon pieces. A method to change surface properties was optimized, providing a new way of using substrates by means of make-over surface properties. The technology has a wide range of potential approaches including high performance coatings and biomedical surfaces. The experiments can be conducted with various types of surface modifications to make surfaces hydrophilic, hydrophobic, conductive, or magnetic. The changes of film thickness and surface energy as functions of incubation time were quantified by means of ellipsometry, profilometry, and contact angle measurements. The use of primer polydopamine …

Evaluation Of The Signature Molecular Descriptor With Blosum62 And An All-Atom Description For Use In Sequence Alignment Of Proteins, Lindsay M. Aichinger

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This Honors Project focused on a few aspects of this topic. The second is comparing the molecular signature kernels to three of the BLOSUM matrices (30, 62, and 90) to test the accuracy of the mathematical model. The kernel matrix was manipulated in order to improve the relationship by focusing on side groups and also by changing how the structure was represented in the matrix by increasing the initial height distance from the central atom (Height 1 and Height 2 included).

There were multiple design constraints for this project. The first was the comparison with the BLOSUM matrices (30, 62, …

Developing A Colorimetric Membrane Sensor To Detect Trihalomethanes In Water Samples Utilizing The Fujiwara Reaction, Max D. Duckworth

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This work focused on creating a colorimetric sensor to detect trihalomethanes (THMs) at concentrations near the level of environmental regulations from the environmental protection agency (EPA). This work utlized the fujiwara reaction as well as a hydrophobic electrospun polyprolylene membrane to produce a sensitive colorimetric reaction. A calibration curve was produced which was able to predict the concentration of a bromoroform solution in the range of 8-250 ppb with a confidence of 97.7 % using the intensity of the color change as a quantitative measure.

Polymer Interactions With Nucleic Acids Under Various Physiological Conditions, Matthew S. Obrzut

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of nucleic acid interactions with cationic polymers with the theory that the polymers could protect the nucleic acids from degradation caused by biological enzymes. We seek to understand what the limitations of the cationic polymers are which, in this case, is mainly polymer-DNA compatibility. This experiment utilized peptide-dextran hybrid polymers with differing functionalizations to condense anionic nucleic acids into nanometer-sized polyplexes. Techniques of dynamic light scattering and zeta-potential were utilized to determine the particle sizes and surface charges of polyplexes.

In this experiment, dextran with a molecular weight of 20 …

Nylon-6 Fabric Nanocomposite Resistance Temperature Detectors - Effects Of Oxidant, Mwcnt, And Nylon-6 Concentration, Rebecca Howdyshell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Abstract

The purpose of this honors project is to construct and test temperature detectors, which can be used for the advancement of exercise devices, prosthetic sockets, or medical applications. Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTDs) are an effective way to measure temperature due to the dependence of the RTD material’s resistance on temperature. The focus of this project was to develop an RTD for prosthetic socket or exercise applications, where the RTD is in close contact with the skin of the user. Generally, RTDs are constructed from platinum, copper, or nickel. However, metal RTDs have a tendency to be large and rigid, …

Effect Of Nitrogen On Properties Of Na2o-Cao-Sro-Zno-Sio2 Glasses, Ahmed Bachar, Cyrille Mercier, Arnaud Tricoteaux, Jean Christophe Hornez, Anne Leriche, Claudine Follet, Bertrand Revel, Stuart Hampshire, Mark R. Towler

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Glasses in the Na₂O-CaO-SrO-ZnO-SiO₂ system have previously been investigated for suitability as a reagent in Al-free glass polyalkenoate cements (GPCs). These materials have many properties that offer potential in orthopedics. However, their applicability has been limited, to date, because of their poor strength. This study was undertaken with the aim of increasing the mechanical properties of a series of these Zn-based GPC glasses by doping with nitrogen to give overall compositions of: 10Na₂O-10CaO-20SrO-20ZnO-(40-3x)SiO₂-xSi₃N₄ (x is the no. of moles of Si₃N₄). The density, glass-transition temperature, hardness, …

Deuterium Enrichment And The Kinetic Isotope Effect During Ruthenium Catalyzed Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis, Jennifer Naumovitz

Online Theses and Dissertations

Fischer Tropsch Synthesis is a highly researched field that is still widely debated today. Research in this field could lead to many different advances, such as alternative fuel sources, explanations of abiogenic hydrocarbons and the formation of organic matter in the solar nebula. Analysis of this synthesis was carried out with a ruthenium catalyst at controlled temperatures and pressures. Two types of experiments were performed: H2/D2 switching and competitive methods. The products showed that the hydrocarbon production rate was slightly increased when syngas was switched to D2/CO. Also, the H/D ratios of the hydrocarbons produced by the FT reaction using …

Effects Of De-Polymerization Of Cellulose In Producing Sugar From Cellulosic Biomass At Low-Temperature, Lin Ling Wu

Online Theses and Dissertations

Lignocellulosic biomass is an abundant, renewable and environmentally friendly raw materials that can be converted into biofuels as an efficient alternative energy source. Sugar production is one of the key steps in converting biomass to fuels and chemicals. In order to enhance the accessibility of lignocellulosic biomass to catalytic enzyme, microorganism, and other types of catalysis during bioprocessing, the pre-treatment of lignocellulosic biomass is needed. To depolymerize the lignocellulosic materials, a 7% NaOH/12% urea solution was used. Selection of enzyme from Novozyme was performed, as a result, NS22074, a Cellulase complex was used throughout the research. Under the same reaction …

Qcm Study Of Silicon Oxide And Iron Oxide Ald Growth Rate, Justin C. Ikerman, Zheng Lu, Sijia Li

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Carbon-Based Scaffolds In Foot And Ankle Surgery, Jarema S. Czarnecki, Khalid Lafdi, Panagiotis A. Tsonis

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Autologous grafts have been the gold standard in tissue replacement and the most accurate means of recapitulating both the biological and mechanical properties of tissue. However, autologous grafts have had complications and drawbacks. Skin grafting, a prime example of an autologous tissue graft, has been limited by the size of graft, availability, and secondary donor site morbidity. Use of cadaveric tissues circumvents several limitations of autologous grafts; however, sterilization processes used to reduce the risk of disease transmission potentially weaken tissues and eliminate living cells and some growth factors from scaffolds, making them suboptimal tissue replacements. Chemical cross-linkage of tissue …

Selective Synthesis And Characterization Of Single-Site Hy Zeolite-Supported Rhodium Complexes And Their Use As Catalysts For Ethylene Hydrogenation And Dimerization, Konstantin Khivantsev

Theses and Dissertations

Single-site Rh(CO)2, Rh(C2H4)2 and Rh(NO)2 complexes anchored on various dealuminated HY zeolites can be used as precursors for the selective surface mediated synthesis of well-defined site-isolated Rh(CO)(H)x complexes. DFT calculations and D2 isotope exchange experiments provide strong evidence for the formation of a family of site isolated mononuclear rhodium carbonyl hydride complexes (including the first examples of RhH complexes with undissociated H2 ligands): Rh(CO)(H2), Rh(CO)(H)2, and Rh(CO)(H). The fraction of each individual complex formed varies significantly with the Si/Al ratio of the zeolite and the nature of the precursor used.

HY zeolite-supported mononuclear Rh(CO)2 complexes are remarkably active in ethylene …

Engineered 3d Microenvironments To Direct Osteogenic Differentiation And Modulate Inflammation, Katherine Elizabeth Rutledge

Theses and Dissertations

Current methods of treating critical size bone defects (CSDs) include autografts and allografts, however both present major limitations including donor-site morbidity, risk of disease transmission, and immune-rejection. Tissue engineering provides a promising alternative to circumvent these shortcomings through the use of stem cells, three dimensional (3D) scaffolds, and growth factors. Cells receive signals from their microenvironment that determine cell phenotype, and a combination of physical cues and chemical factors is thought to have the most profound influence on stem cell behavior. A major focus of tissue engineering strategies is scaffold design to recapitulate in vivo microenvironmental architecture to direct stem …

Integrated Nanoscale Imaging And Spatial Recognition Of Biomolecules On Surfaces, Congzhou Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Biomolecules on cell surfaces play critical roles in diverse biological and physiological processes. However, conventional bulk scale techniques are unable to clarify the density and distribution of specific biomolecules in situ on single, living cell surfaces at the micro or nanoscale. In this work, a single cell analysis technique based on Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is developed to spatially identify biomolecules and characterize nanomechanical properties on single cell surfaces. The unique advantage of these AFM-based techniques lies in the ability to operate in situ (in a non-destructive fashion) and in real time, under physiological conditions or controlled micro-environments.

First, AFM-based …

Survey And Data Analysis Of Polymer Flooding Pilot And Field Applications In China, Yandong Zhang

Masters Theses

"Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes are regarded as important methods to recovery remaining oil after primary and secondary recovery. It is significant to select the most appropriate EOR process among the possible techniques for a candidate reservoir. EOR screening criteria has been created using available EOR datasets and served as the first step to compare the suitability of each EOR method for a particular reservoir. Most of these datasets are collected from EOR surveys published by Oil & Gas Journal. This study proposes a comprehensive study of a dataset including 55 pilot and field polymer flooding applications in China. Statistical …

Development Of Super Hydrophobic Surfaces Using Silica Nanoparticles, Muhammad Salman Saleem

Dissertations and Theses

The development of surfaces that have high water contact angles and hysteresis has always been of great importance in industrial applications. Various methods and techniques have been introduced to fabricate surfaces at nano-scale to support super hydrophobicity. Some of these techniques are expensive, some are very complex, most can be used for selective materials and substrate and some form surfaces with very poor wear resistance. This document represents a systematic study on fabrication of super hydrophobic surfaces on glass substrate (SiO2) using the functionalized silica (SiO2) nano particles. SU8, Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and Methyphenyl Resin SR355 polymer are being used as …

A Study On The Heavy Crude Oil Viscosity Reduction With The Dissolution Of Nitrogen And Carbon Dioxide, Abdurahman Ajumobi

Dissertations and Theses

World's energy challenges would be greatly improved upon if half of the world's heavy oil and extra heavy oil could be made to ow in pipelines. Viscosity reduction of heavy oils is the key to solving this problem. In this study, aside from injecting pure nitrogen and pure carbon dioxide separately into the oil, two different compositions of the mixture of the two gases were also injected. In the first mixture, varied quantities of the two gases were used; 62:5%, 82:2% and 86:4% of the mixture was nitrogen while 37:5%, 17:8% and 13:6% was carbon dioxide at total test pressures …

Designed Synthesis Of Nanoporous Organic Polymers For Selective Gas Uptake And Catalytic Applications, Pezhman Arab

Theses and Dissertations

Design and synthesis of porous organic polymers have attracted considerable attentions during the past decade due to their wide range of applications in gas storage, gas separation, energy conversion, and catalysis. Porous organic polymers can be pre-synthetically and post-synthetically functionalized with a wide variety of functionalities for desirable applications. Along these pursuits, we introduced new synthetic strategies for preparation of porous organic polymers for selective CO₂ capture.

Porous azo-linked polymers (ALPs) were synthesized by an oxidative reaction of amine-based monomers using copper(I) as a catalyst which leads to azo-linkage formation. ALPs exhibit high surface areas of up to 1200 …

Experimental Study Of Crude Oil Emulsion Stability By Surfactants And Nanoparticles, Zainab Alabdulmohsen

Masters Theses

"Surfactants and nanoparticles are materials being widely used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Surfactants are mainly used to reduce the interfacial tension between oil and water which could form a stable film of emulsion between these two immiscible fluids. Also, nanotechnology is a potential candidate to offer another solution to improve oil recovery. Nanoparticles can form a solid layer at the droplet's interface and stand as resistant stabilizer under harsh reservoir conditions.

This research investigates whether the combination of surfactants and nanoparticles can provide a more stable emulsion than surfactants only. Two parts of experimental study have been done in …

Evaluation Of Preformed Particle Gel Treatment Using Homogeneous And Heterogeneous Models, Hilary Ogochukwu Elue

Masters Theses

"This research investigates the effects of preformed particle gel (PPG) in remedying the problems of excess water production and low oil recovery of heterogeneous reservoirs by placing the PPG in the high-permeability layer, thus diverting displacing brine to the unswept low permeability layer. This investigation was completed with three tasks.

The first task was to evaluate the PPG swelling kinetics and strength as a function of concentration of brine. The result of this task indicate that PPG prepared with low concentration of brine swells more, becomes weaker, more deformable than PPG prepared with high concentration of brine.

The second task …

Co₂ Miscible Flooding Application And Screening Criteria, Mingfei Yin

Masters Theses

"Field experience has shown that CO₂ miscible flooding is an effective method to improve oil recovery, but only with proper reservoir candidate selection and optimal project design. This paper discusses both CO₂ miscible and immiscible flooding mechanisms and offers some guidelines for flooding operations. New developments in MMP determination are also introduced.

This research is based on a summary of field data from 134 CO₂ projects in the U.S. Several numerical methods have been applied for data cleaning. After cleaning, data from 128 projects have been analyzed and correlated. Carbonate reservoirs and sandstone reservoirs are the two …

Synthesis Of Different Sizes & Functions Nanoparticles, Jiaming Geng

Masters Theses

"Nanogels, whose size range from 1 to 100nm, have been interested in many research areas: cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, catalysts, photochemistry, and in optical switches or sensors. In Petroleum Engineering area, nanogels can be used as conformance control agent and emulsion stabilizer. And after grafting functional groups or hybrid, nanogels can be used as tracer for the visual modeling.

Though nanoparticles have been studied for more than 20 years, few of them are about nanogels. In the thesis, stirring rate, surfactant type and concentration were found have a large impact on the synthesis of nanogels. And cationic nanogels have salt and acid …

1-D Coordination Polymer Of Transition Metal As A Precursor To Generate Surface Active Transition Metal Catalyst, Siddharth Gopalakrishnan

Masters Theses

"The work describes the synthesis, characterization and properties of Ni, Co and Cu based 1-D coordination polymer with 1, 4-benzenedicarboxylic acid as linker and 1-methylimidazole as co-ligand. The structure of the coordination polymers were investigated employing SCXRD and showed the formation of supramolecular 3-D architecture of the 1-D coordination polymer through non covalent CH..π, π.. π, and H-bonding interaction. These 1-D coordination polymers were further characterized by IR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. Thermal decomposition of these polymeric metal complexes gave rise to carbon coated metal and metal carbides nanoparticles, for the 1-D structures of Co and …

Studies On The Role Of Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Polyacrylamides In Fine Coal Flotation, Ontlametse Kenneth Molatlhegi

Masters Theses

"The current study investigated the effect of novel organic/inorganic (hybrid) polyacrylamide polymer as ash (slimes) depressant in fine coal flotation for the possibility to enhance the combustible recovery and ash rejection. Raw coal samples contain about 25% of ash-forming minerals were crushed, grinded to -75um and floated in the presence of in-house synthesized hybrid Polyacrylamide (Al(OH)₃-PAM or Al-PAM) at different operational parameters. Denver flotation cell with a 5-Liters capacity was used and the parameters investigated include: Al-PAM dosage, Al-PAM conditioning time, dual use of Al-PAM and a dispersant, impeller rotation speed and pulp's pH. For comparison purposes, commercially …

Steam Flooding Screening And Eor Prediction By Using Clustering Algorithm And Data Visualization, Na Zhang

Masters Theses

"Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques are vitally important in the oil industry because these techniques could not only extend the life of wells, but also produce 10% to 30% additional oil from the reservoir. However, selecting the most suitable EOR techniques for unknown reservoirs is not easy for decision making. Based on literature, EOR screening criteria could help to find the best candidates for unknown projects, which is classified into two categories: conventional EOR screening and advanced EOR screening. In this research, an artificial intelligent (AI) method, hierarchical clustering algorithm, is adapted to analyze both steam flooding projects and worldwide …

Biomolecule Localization And Surface Engineering Within Size Tunable Nanoporous Silica Particles, Daniel M. Schlipf

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Mesoporous silica materials are versatile platforms for biological catalysis, isolation of small molecules for detection and separation applications. The design of mesoporous silica supports for tailored protein and biomolecule interactions has been limited by the techniques to demonstrate biomolecule location and functionality as a function of pore size. This work examines the interaction of proteins and lipid bilayers with engineered porous silica surfaces using spherical silica particles with tunable pore diameters (3 – 12 nm) in the range relevant to biomolecule uptake in the pores, and large particle sizes (5 - 15 µm) amenable to microscopy imaging

The differentiation of …

Fundamental Studies Of Surfactant Templated Metal Oxide Materials Synthesis And Transformation For Adsorption And Energy Applications, Saikat Das

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

This work addresses fundamental aspects of designing templates and curing conditions for the synthesis of mesoporous metal oxide thin films. The first section addresses selection of cationic-carbohydrate surfactant mixtures to synthesize templated silica thin films for selective adsorption of simple carbohydrates based on molecular imprinting. Nuclear magnetic resonance and fluorescence spectroscopy results suggest a novel structure for mixtures of alkyl glucopyranosides or xylopyranosides with cationic (trimethylammonium) surfactants. Despite thermodynamically favorable mixing, the carbohydrate headgroups in the mixed micelle adopt an inverted configuration with their headgroups in the micelle core, and therefore are inaccessible for molecular imprinting. This orientation occurs even …