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Transcript of UF ChE News_Summer/Fall 2015
F E AT U RE D RE S E AR C HFAC U LT Y RE S E AR C H F E AT U RE D O N J OU RNAL C O V E R S
PAG E 4
CHEMICAL ENGINEERINGNEWS
S U M M E R / FA L L 2 0 1 5
FA C U LT Y P R O F E S S O R S H I P W I N N E R S PA G E 5 W W W . C H E . U F L . E D U
L AT E ST N E WST H E D E PA RT M E N T W E L C O M E S N E W FAC U LT Y M E M B E R
PAG E 7C O V E R ST O RYT H E U N I T O P S L ABU N D E R G O E S M A J O RRE NO VAT I O N S
PAG E 1 0
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The Gator ChemE family is growing! I am very pleased to
announce that Dr. David D. Hibbitts, will be joining the Chem-
ical Engineering Department starting Fall 2015. Dr. Hibbitts
received his PhD from the University of Virginia from the
group of Matt Neurock (now at Minnesota), and he recently
completed his postdoctoral appointment with Enrique Igle-
sia at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Hibbitts is
an expert in heterogeneous catalysis for reactions of fossil-
or biomass-based chemicals. The department continues to
build strong visibility in this important research area. We
are continuing our search for one Assistant Professor this
year, and will continue that search again next year.
Congratulations to Jennifer Curtis for receiving 2015 F. J. and
Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute!
This is an AIChE Board of Directors’ Award and one of the
most prestigious awards offered by AIChE; it recognizes
Jennifer’s numerous activities in professional leadership,
including service on the AIChE Board of Directors, the Exec-
utive Board of the Program Committee, and the Publications
Committee. She is currently Associate Editor of the AIChE
Journal, Co-Editor of Chemical Engineering Education, and
Past Chair of the Particle Technology Forum. Thank you,
Jennifer, for your tremendous service to the Chemical Engi-
neering profession and for bringing such great distinction
to the Department! I hope you can all attend the presen-
tation of this award, which will take place at the Honors
Ceremony, held during AIChE’s 2015 Annual Meeting in Salt
Lake City, Utah, on the evening of Sunday, November 8th.
I am also very pleased to announce the new recipients of
our endowed faculty positions! These include the Charles A.
Stokes Professor, Carlos Rinaldi; the Fred and Bonnie Edie
Professor, Fan Ren; the ExxonMobil Gator Chemical Engi-
neering Alumni Professor, Mark Orazem; and our newest
endowed position, the William and Tracy Cirioli Professor,
Jason Weaver. Congratulations to all of our new endowed
professors, and our sincere appreciation to the generous
alumni and friends of the department who made it possible
to honor our outstanding faculty in this meaningful way.
The next time you are in Gainesville, please allow us to
give you a tour of our newly refurbished unit operations
laboratory! A generous $500K donation has allowed us to
make substantial improvements to the lab, including a new
thin-film evaporator unit, a new control system for the
distillation columns, and several new benchtop modules.
The Lab Director, Dmitry Kopelevich assisted by Distin-
guished Professor Fan Ran and our lab technician, Jim
Hinnant, has done a wonderful job implementing these
improvements. Thanks to their hard work and leadership
and the support of our donors, the lab is in excellent physical
and financial health. As you know, the hands-on experi-
ence offered by the lab is critical training for our future
chemical engineers, and we are very happy to have one of
the few labs in the country with pilot scale equipment.
C H A I R ’ S M E S S A G E
To be added to our communications list or to send us your story, send an email to Monique Phears at [email protected].
Dr. Richard DickinsonD E P A R T M E N T C H A I R
We are planning another marquis event at the 2015
Annual AICHE Meeting in Salt Lake City. Please join us for a
dessert reception on Tuesday, November 10th at 8pm, at
the Trofi Restaurant on the first floor of the Hilton.
If you are attending the meeting or will be in the area,
please stop by and help us celebrate another successful
year for the department!
G R E E T I N G S F R O M G A I N E S V I L L E !
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FACULT Y N EWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4AN D AWARDS
FACULT Y H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . . . . 7David Hibbitts, Assistant Professor
ALUM N I H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . . . . 8Alex Moreno, ‘83
UN IT OPS UP DATE . . . . . . . . . . . 10
STUDENT N EWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12ECS Student Chapter, Limbit lessSolutions
STUDENT H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . 14Undergraduate Aaron Thomas
STUDENT AWARDS . . . . . . . . . . 15
S U M M E R / F A L L 2 0 1 5
In response to a recent awareness of the
need for improved safety culture in uni-
versity laboratories, the Department of
Chemical Engineering has formed the
Chemical Engineering (CHE) Student
Safety Council (SSC). The membership
of the council comprises the Laboratory
Safety Managers from each research
group in the department. Other gradu-
ate students are also invited to join the
CHESSC. The goal of the CHESSC is to
improve the safety culture in the depart-
ment, making the research laboratories a
safer place to work. Their first action was
to create new safety training modules
that emphasize hazards that are specific
to chemical engineering laboratories.
Members of the CHESSC presented some
of their modules to incoming graduate
students during our first annual gradu-
ate student safety orientation in August.
Laboratory Safety Managers (Advisor)
Shihyun Ahn (Ren)
Samer Alam (Lele)
Mert Arca (Butler)
Husain Baaqel (Crisalle)
Ju Hee Choi (Weaver)
Phillip Dixon (Chauhan)
Arthur Dizon (Orazem)
Akshita Dutta (Vasenkov)
Dr. Samuel Gause(*) (Chauhan)
Hankook Kim (Anderson)
Pratik Kothary (Jiang)
Tian Lan (Tseng)
Sin-Yen Leo (Jiang)
Lorena Maldonado-Camargo (Rinaldi)
Sarah Mena (Curtis)
Anh Nguyen (Kopelevich)
Rahul Rai (Weaver)
Samantha Roberts (Hagelin-Weaver)
Kevin Ward (Narayanan)
Justin Wong (Ziegler)
Dr. Jun Yin(*) (Tseng)
Volunteer Members (Advisor)
Yogita A Deshpande (Hagelin-Weaver)
Evan Forman (Vasenkov)
Karishma Gupta (Chauhan)
Morgan Harding (Orazem)
Andreina Lam (Rinaldi)
Tao Li (Weaver)
Blayne Phillips (Jiang)
Chun-Chieng Wang (Narayanan)
Goutham Kotamreddy (Crisalle)
Chemical Engineering Student Safety Council
“
Dr. Cammy AbernathyD E A N O F E N G I N E E R I N G
Dr. Richard Dickinson D E P A R T M E N T C H A I R
Monique PhearsM A R K E T I N G C O O R D I N AT O R
O N T H E C O V E R
Photo: Unit Operation Lab’s Thin Film Evaporator; Students Tyler Burkett, James Fong, Thomas Goodall and Jacob Kerr
D E P A R T M E N T O FC H E M I C A LE N G I N E E R I N G (*) Recent Graduate
Faculty News & AwardsPENG JIANGS M A R T S H A P E M E M O R Y P O L Y M E R S P U B L I S H E D I N N A T U R E C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
Led by a Chemical Engineering graduate student Yin Fang, Prof. Jiang’s group has recently pioneered a new type of shape memory polymer that can be instantaneously triggered by applying an external pressure or by exposing to a large variety of vapors, such as acetone and toluene. The results have recently been published in Nature Communications (doi: 10.1038/ncomms8416) and Advanced Materials (doi: 10.1002/adma.201500835). Dr. Curtis Taylor from UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Dr. Vito Basile from National Council of Research, Italy are major collaborators of the work. DTRA, NASA, and NSF sponsored this discovery.
FAN RENR E S E A R C H A R T I C L E S M A K E “ T O P C I T E D ” L I S T S
The Editor in Chief of the Journals of Vacuum Science and Technology (JVST) A and B has just announced that two of Prof. Fan Ren’s research articles are both highly cited and have made the JVST A and JVST B top cited lists for 2014. An email blast was sent to thousands of people to recognize the highly cited articles. Additionally, Prof. Ren’s article in JVST B was selected as Editors’ Pick.
The cover of the latest issue of Soft Matter features research performed by doctoral candidate Mert Arca and Professors Butler and Ladd on the dynamics of DNA. The work examines the lateral migration of DNA during transport through a microfluidic channel by a combination of flow fields and electric fields. The results validate an improved model of DNA dynamics and indicate that the motion of DNA can be controlled for technological purposes using a very simple mechanism.
S E E L I N K S F O R T H E S E S T O R I E S A N D M O R E A T C H E . U F L . E D U
ChemCommChemical Communicationswww.rsc.org/chemcomm
ISSN 1359-7345
COMMUNICATIONSergey Vasenkov et al.Relationship between single-fi le diff usion of mixed and pure gases in dipeptide nanochannels by high fi eld diff usion NMR
Volume 51 Number 69 7 September 2015 Pages 13333–13422
SERGEY VASENKOV & KIRK ZIEGLER
N M R O B S E R V A T I O N O F S I N G L E - F I L E
D I F F U S I O N O F M I X T U R E S F E A T U R E D
O N T H E C O V E R O F C H E M I C A L
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
The front cover of the last issue of Chemical Communications features high field diffusion NMR studies of single-file diffusion performed by PhD student Akshita Dutta under the advisement of Dr. Sergey Vasenkov and Dr. Kirk J Ziegler. Single-file diffusion (SFD) is the diffusion in narrow channels where
molecules cannot pass one another. Recent theoretical and computational studies suggest that induction of SFD conditions in nanoporous membranes and catalysts can lead to a dramatic enhancement of the performance of these systems in separations and catalysis, respectively. The featured communication opens up experimental studies of such performance enhancement by reporting first experimental evidence of SFD in a mixture of different types of diffusing species. This work was performed in collaboration with the group of Dr. Russ Bowers, Chemistry Department, UF.
JASON BUTLER & TONY LADD
R E S E A R C H F E A T U R E D O N T H E
C O V E R O F S O F T M A T T E R
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FA C U LT Y N E W S & AWA R D S
Carlos RinaldiP R O F E S S O R
Fan RenD I S T I N G U I S H E D P R O F E S S O R
P ROFESSORSH I PS
Mark OrazemD I S T I N G U I S H E D P R O F E S S O R
S E E L I N K S F O R T H E S E S T O R I E S A N D M O R E A T C H E . U F L . E D U
SERGEY VASENKOV & KIRK ZIEGLER
N M R O B S E R V A T I O N O F S I N G L E - F I L E
D I F F U S I O N O F M I X T U R E S F E A T U R E D
O N T H E C O V E R O F C H E M I C A L
C O M M U N I C A T I O N S
3
1
4
2
Mark Orazem is awarded the ExxonMobil Gator Chemical Engi-neering Alumni Professorship. Professor Orazem is an expert in impedance spectroscopy for electrochemical engineering appli-cations and his research ranges from fundamental to applied. He has recently been appointed Adjunct Professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. He has received nearly 3000 citations in the last five years which includes a text on Electro-chemical Impedance Spectroscopy.
Fan Ren is awarded the Fred and Bonnie Edie Professorship. Professor Ren is responsible for the innovative transfor-mation of the way we educate students in our labs and in our Master’s program. He has initiated groundbreaking and seminal research in the field of electronic materials and devices, pioneered the use of wide bandgap semiconductor sensors for chemical and biological detections and devel-oped semiconductor-based hydrogen sensors capable of ppm detection sensitivity. He has 34 patents, 877 publica-tions and 29,160 citations.
Jason WeaverP R O F E S S O R
5
Carlos Rinaldi is awarded the Charles A. Stokes Professorship. Professor Rinaldi has made pioneering, transformative contributions to the engineering of magnetic nanoparticle suspensions and fundamental contributions to the physical understanding of nanoscale thermal phenomena. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scien-tists and has recently been awarded two competitive NIH R21 Grants and an NSF grant.
Jason Weaver is awarded the William P. and Tracy Cirioli Term Professorship. Professor Weaver has developed a world-re-nowned research program at UF that focuses on the growth and surface chemistry of oxide films that are important in applications of heterogeneous catalysis. In addition to funding from the DOE and NSF, Prof. Weaver recently received a sub-stantial grant from a private company to conduct fundamental studies on the catalytic transformations of methane.
6
The Department of Chemical Engineering is proud to announce that Mark E. Orazem has been
recognized as Distinguished Professor. Professor Mark Orazem holds the ExxonMobil Chemical
Engineering Alumni and the University of Florida Research Foundation Term Professorships and
is an Adjunct Professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology.
Many of his contributions have been in the area of impedance spectroscopy, a powerful analytic
tool employed in all aspects of electrochemistry, including energy devices, corrosion, and sensors.
Professor Orazem has over 180 refereed publications and has co-authored, with Bernard Tribol-
let of the CNRS in Paris, a popular textbook entitled, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy.
The Chinese translation of this textbook was published by the Chemical Industry Press in 2014.
Professor Orazem serves as a consultant to a new international graduate program at the Univer-
sity of Yamanashi in Japan, as well as to a variety of industries. In 2012, Professor Orazem received
the Henry B. Linford Award of the Electrochemical Society for Distinguished Teaching.
Professor Orazem is a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and served for ten years as Associate
Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. He has also served as President of the Inter-
national Society of Electrochemistry.
Dr. Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and AIChE Fellow,
receives the 2015 F. J. and Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute! The Van
Antwerpen Award is an AIChE Board of Directors’ Award which recognizes Dr. Curtis’ numerous
activities in professional leadership, including service on the AIChE Board of Directors, the Execu-
tive Board of the Program Committee, and the Publications Committee. She is currently Associate
Editor of the AIChE Journal, Co-Editor of Chemical Engineering Education, and Past Chair of the
Particle Technology Forum.
As Associate Dean for Research at the University of Florida, Dr. Curtis supports faculty and
researchers in developing and maintaining internationally recognized research programs, includ-
ing promoting interdisciplinary research, working with research sponsors, and coordinating the
college’s research institutes and shared user research facilities. Curtis also serves as Director of
the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which promotes collaboration between Florida’s public
universities to conduct research, education and commercialization in energy technology.
Curtis’ research focuses on the flow behavior of particles, with applications ranging from food
processing, pharmaceutical manufacture, and the aerospace, energy and mining industries to nat-
ural processes such as debris flows and sediments. The impact of her work has been recognized
through numerous research awards including AIChE’s Thomas Baron Award for Fluid-Particle
Systems and AIChE’s Fluidization Lectureship Award.
FA C U LT Y N E W S & AWA R D S
T H I S A W A R D W I L L B E P R E S E N T E D
AT T H E H O N O R S C E R E M O N Y AT
T H E A I C H E A N N U A L M E E T I N G O N
S U N D AY, N O V E M B E R 8 T H , 2 0 1 5 .
Jennifer Sinclair-Curtis
F. J. AND DOROTHY VAN ANTWERPEN AWARD
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR ANNOUNCED
Mark E. Orazem
Au nanoparticles rapidly catalyze oxida-
tion reactions, including those of bio-
mass-derived glycerol to form glyceric
acid, a chemical pre-cursor to polymers.
Pt mixed with ReOx creates acid sites in close
proximity to metal surfaces when exposed to
water, enabling bifunctional acid- and met-
al-catalyzed reactions to efficiently deoxy-
genate biomass-derived chemicals, such as
hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).
The behavior of active sites within zeolite
catalysts are dictated by the size and shape
of the voids created by walls made of Si
and O atoms. Above a dimethylether mol-
ecule is H-bonded to an acid site, created
by the placement of an Al3+ cation into the
zeolite framework.
1 2 3
FA C U LT Y H I G H L I G H T
glycerol
glyceric acid
HMF 1,5-‐diol
Dr.
DAVIDHIBBITTSA S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R I N C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G
C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G I S P R O U D T O W E L C O M E A N E W F A C U LT Y M E M B E R .
Hibbitts’ research group will combine
kinetic and isotopic experiments with
state-of-the-art density functional theory
calculations to achieve an atomic-level
understanding of heterogeneous catalysis.
His Ph.D. studies were at the University
of Virginia (advised by Matthew Neurock)
where he learned computational cataly-
sis and from there he did a Post-Doc at
the University of California at Berkeley
(advised by Enrique Iglesia) where he used
a combination of theory and experiments
to study the production of fuels from
carbon monoxide and hydrogen (Fisch-
er-Tropsch synthesis).
The desired shift in the global energy
economy from petroleum-based fuels to
renewable resources will be made possible
through the design of catalysts, including
electro- and photo-catalysts. These catalyst
materials enable the efficient conversion of
feedstocks derived from biomass, natural
gas, and other emerging resources into
value-added fuels and chemicals. Key to
the development of such catalysts is an
understanding of how they behave at the
molecular level, leading to structure-func-
tion relationships which improve catalytic
processes and guide catalyst discovery.
Hibbitts’ research group will combine
multiple techniques to study a variety of
chemical conversions of biomass and shale
gas to attempt to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions through the use of supported
noble metal and zeolite catalysts.
In addition to his research endeavors,
Hibbitts is teaching a course in Molecular
Understanding of Catalysis, available to
graduate Ph.D. and Master’s students this
fall. The course will cover a wide range of
topics in heterogeneous catalysis, including
synthesis, characterization, kinetic and iso-
topic studies, as well as the use of density
functional theory and other computational
methods in the area of catalysis.
Powering The New Engineer8
University of Florida Chemical Engineer-
ing alum Alex Moreno (’83) has always
seen himself building businesses, even
before he began his undergraduate jour-
ney at UF.
Mr. Moreno has successfully launched and
developed a number of companies and proj-
ects—ranging from environmental services,
health care staffing, and construction and
development—over the last 25 years. Prior
to 1998, Mr. Moreno owned a company
called A.M. Brown, which was a holding
company for a variety of environmental
businesses—soils and materials testing,
environmental consulting, environmental
testing and core drilling. He founded U.S.
Biosystems in 1998 and it became one of
the largest environmental testing laborato-
ries in Florida. He has also managed
Alex Moreno accepts the first ChemE Alumni Professional
Accomplishment in Entrepreneurship Award on April 17, 2015.
ALEXMORENO‘83
A L U M N I H I G H L I G H T
construction projects from small office ren-
ovations to multi-million dollar build-outs.
Mr. Moreno is currently the CEO and
Co-founder of Nightingale Nurses (one of the
fastest-growing healthcare staffing com-
pany in the US, with over 500 employees
and revenues in excess of $50 million). He is
also the CEO and Founder of Panther Devel-
opment Investments (providing diversified
developmental services to Native American
nations), with work in the areas of energy
trading and investments.
Earlier this spring, Mr. Moreno
was invited back to campus as
the keynote speaker at the 16th
Annual GRACE Symposium.
After receiving the 1st annual
ChemE Alumni Professional
Accomplishment in Entrepre-
neurship Award, we were very
eager to talk with Mr. Moreno to
find out the keys to his success.
Mr. Moreno was kind enough to
share several thoughts pertain-
ing to best practices for student success,
successes and failures in business and the
need to “dream big”.
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR
BACKGROUND, WHERE YOU’RE FROM
AND WHY YOU CHOSE UF?
I was born in Colombia. When I was 10, my
family moved to Fort Lauderdale. I have
five brothers and one sister, and I am the
middle child in a very traditional family.
My older brother was the first to attend UF
after finishing his undergrad at FAU, but
I was the first one to attend college away
from home [Fort Lauderdale] and my dad
had some very straightforward advice on
my attending UF. He told me, “Great school.
Go there”. I knew that UF was well known
for the engineering and medical programs.
I always wanted to be in engineering, how-
ever I remember walking into a hospital
and quickly realizing that was not the
environment I wanted to be in for the rest
of my life.
Alumni Highlight on
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING OVER OTHER
ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES?
My major was chemical engineering with a
minor in electrical engineering. My cousin
was an industrial engineering major and
was also my roommate at UF. I chose ChemE
as my major because it is pretty broad in
what you learn. You learn to see
things in a holistic manner...in
a big way—other engineering
disciplines are focused in one
area. I never wanted to change
my major—I always wanted to
expand on what I was learning
in ChemE. After UF, and before
starting my MBA program at
Harvard, I worked at General
Electric as part of the Chemi-
cal Metallurgical Management
Program, an elite and highly
selective 2-year management
training program.
HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT?
I didn’t get a chance to socialize as much
as I could have with my fellow CHE class-
mates. That all as changed now and I would
highly recommend students take advan-
tage of these opportunities. I did participate
in waterskiing as extra activity, and tried
to finish my degree in less than four years.
UF had quarters at the time, so I was able to
load up on classes. I can recall in one class
I got an 80 on an exam, and the average in
the class was a 27. I was told that my score
had to be disqualified or everyone else
would fail!
PERTAINING TO YOUR BUSINESSES,
HOW DO YOU RETAIN AND MOTIVATE
YOUR EMPLOYEES?
As for the businesses I have founded over
the years, motivating my employees is
among my highest priorities to driving suc-
cess. I hold them to a high standard, but I
give them the space to be their own per-
son and to make mistakes. However, my
role as CEO is to find opportunities that
build the business, while my COO handles
day-to-day tasks. This allows me to focus
on the big picture and overall growth for
the company.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE
STUDENTS WHO ARE CURRENTLY
IN THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
PROGRAM AT UF?
When it comes to how a student can get
themselves to stand out from others, life
has a way of separating achievers and
non-achievers. The ability to be motivated
is what works; and your attitude has a huge
impact on where you end up—it’s not just
about your brains. If students are having
a hard time with classes or finding moti-
vation, I would tell them to just stay at it
and keep plugging. This is such a great life
lesson because there are periods of life that
won’t be easy. [Achieving your dreams] is
not an easy journey!
HOW DO YOU STAY
BALANCED IN YOUR
PERSONAL LIFE?
Maintaining a healthy work/
life balance is also import-
ant. I like to travel and spend
time with my family. When
you spend time with family,
you lose focus on the every-
day work “stuff” and you can
focus on what’s most import-
ant. Family means everything
to me and I purposely find
time to spend meaningful
moments with my wife and children to
build lifelong memories. It is the behavior I
want to see my children exemplify as they
grow older, and I would encourage students
to think along these lines as well. Work
hard, dream big—but don’t lose sight of the
things that really matter to you in life along
the way.
9
“ I p u r p o s e ly f i n d t i m e t o s p e n d m e a n i n g f u l m o m e nt s w i t h my w i f e
a n d c h i l d r e n t o b u i l d l i f e l o n g m e m o -r i e s . I t i s t h e b e h av i o r I wa nt t o s e e my c h i l d r e n e x e mp l i f y a s t h e y g r o w
o l d e r, a n d I w o u l d e n c o u ra g e s t u d e nt s t o t h i n k a l o n g t h e s e l i n e s a s w e l l . ”
A L U M N I H I G H L I G H T
“Mr. Moreno has achieved above and
beyond in his career, understands the
value of the education he received at UF
and purposely finds time to come to cam-
pus to pass along some of his knowledge
and experience to our students—many of
whom hope to one day follow in his foot-
steps as a successful entrepreneur,” says
Department Chair, Rich Dickinson.
Doctoral student and President of GRACE,
Samantha Roberts, agrees. “To hear from
Mr. Moreno about his successes, failures
and best practices in life and in business
helps us students tremendously as we
chart our own career paths. We are very
thankful for his time and for his ongoing
future mentorship.”
10 Powering The New Engineer
The Unit Operations Lab is one of
few labs with pilot plant-scale
equipment. Thanks to a generous
donation, the lab is currently undergoing
substantial upgrades. Under the direction of
faculty member Dmitry Kopelevich, these
upgrades will significantly enhance
students’ learning experience and will
introduce them to state-of-the-art indus-
trial equipment.
One of the major upgrades is a complete
renovation of the control system for dis-
tillation columns, including installation of
new Coriolis flow meters, guided wave radar
level sensors, pressure transmitters and a
rebuilding of control valves. These instru-
ments are managed by a new DeltaV control
system, which supports the WirelessHART
communication protocol, thus simplifying
further upgrades to the control system by
installation of wireless field devices.
The 50-year old thin film evaporator is
also being replaced. The new evaporator
system is being equipped with advanced
sensors, including in-line refractometers
for real-time analysis of feed and product
compositions. Another system undergoing
substantial renovation is the rotary drum
filter, with upgrades focused on improving
control over such system parameters as
vacuum pressure and drum rotation speed.
unit ops update
D E PA R T M E N T U P D AT E
Powering The New Engineer 11
5th year student, Zak Wright, works with the continuous filtration system.
SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE
AN D UP GR ADES
TO THE UNIT OPERATIONS LAB
Student Organization RestoredE L E C T R O C H E M I C A L S O C I E T Y S T U D E N T C H A P T E R I S R E S T O R E D I N T H E D E PA R T M E N T O F C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G .
View the map online at http://www.che.ufl.edu/AIChE/alumni_map.html.
ALUMNI MAP
The ECS Student Chapter at UF was restored this past spring under the guidance of
CHE faculty member Dr. Mark Orazem. The kickoff meeting hosted speaker Dr. Bernard
Tribollet of Université Pierre et Marie Curie. Dr. Tribollet’s talk gave an overview of elec-
trochemical measurements and various applications. Student chapter officers were
also elected at the first meeting to make up the executive board. A second successful
meeting hosted speaker Dr. Kirk Ziegler, CHE faculty member. Dr. Ziegler’s talk focused
on applications of electrochemistry within the field of nanotechnology for alternative
energy. While the ECS student chapter is newly reformed, we have members from sev-
eral UF departments, which represent the wide range of electrochemical applications
across campus. The student chapter has many exciting events planned for the upcom-
ing year and would like to extend an invitation to anyone interested to contact Justin
Wong, ECS Student Chapter President, at [email protected] for more information.
12
AIChE has created a UF
Chemical Engineering
Alumni Map to serve as a
helpful resource for ChE
undergraduates! The map
gives students the chance
to network and see where
a chemical engineering
degree will take them.
To be on the map, send
your information (e.g. your
name, company/graduate
school, location, and posi-
tion/title) to Pearl Leung
After attending an inspirational work-
shop in March 2015, a group of Gators,
including ChemE undergrad Tanya
Therathanakorn, knew that they had to
get involved with Limbitless Solutions.
Limbitless Solutions is a non-profit
organization was founded at the Uni-
versity of Central Florida in 2014 and
is focused on creating a world without
limb deficiency. Limbitless Solutions
firmly believes that no one should
profit from a child missing an arm. The
organization utilizes the technology
of additive manufacturing to supply
bionic limbs for kids with disabilities.
The Limbitless Solutions: Gainesville
Branch was established at the end of
the Spring 2015 semester, and is the
first satellite location of Limbitless
Solutions to be created. The branch is
mostly comprised of students from
engineering majors, but also includes
majors ranging from biology to com-
puter science.
The branch is also involved in the orga-
nization’s “12 Arms for Christmas”
project and their current “Books and
Bionics” Indiegogo campaign which
aims to deliver 75 bionic arms and books
for displaced Syrian children.
In a span of eight weeks, students have
worked to build a Limbitless test arm—
the first steps towards being able to
help kids in need. The Limbitless arm
is comprised of 3D-printed parts as well
as components that can be easily found
and ordered on Amazon. All together,
the arm costs less than $350 in parts
and is relatively simple to assemble.
The printed arm provides an affordable
solution to a child constantly outgrow-
ing their prosthetic arm.
13
S T U D E N T N E W S
THE GAINESVILLE BRANCH IS
CURRENTLY WORKING ON
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ARM,
INCLUDING A MECHANICAL ELBOW,
WATERPROOFING THE ELECTRONICS
AND ENHANCING THE SIGNAL
INPUTS FROM A CHILD.
For more info, please visit Limbitless-Solutions.org & 3DHope.com
Limbitless Solutions
14
This year, ChE undergraduate Aaron Thomas
headed up the UF Engineers Without Borders
team (EWB-UF) in Aripalca, Bolivia. The team
has been working in an agrarian community
of Aripalca for three years and is comprised of
Chemical, Civil, Environmental and Mechani-
cal Engineering students who give a great
deal of their free time during the year to see
various projects make a lasting difference in
the lives within the Bolivian community.
Located in a river valley, the Aripalca com-
munity relies on an open channel irrigation
system to deliver water to their fields during
the dry parts of the year (the communi-
ty practices subsistence farming). During
the wet season, the community experienc-
es heavy rainfall and a swelling of the river.
This year’s project was to protect a partic-
ularly vulnerable portion of the irrigation
system with a wall of 1x1x2 gabion blocks.
A gabion is a large wire cage filled with
stones that acts as a protective structure. The
wall constructed by EWB is 33 meters long,
two rows high and was constructed over ten
days by seven UF students, one professor, one
Bolivian engineer and about 15-20 members
of the Aripalca community. Community input
is utilized at every step to ensure the project
will be maintained. Additionally, everything
that is built by EWB is made from local mate-
rials so that the community can repair the
system in case of flood damage.
Thomas’ role as team lead on this project has
been to organize the design, fundraising and
overall construction. Managing the budget,
coordinating trip logistics and design approv-
als and garnering support from various
Rotary Clubs all contributed to the project
being successfully completed on budget.
Aaron says, “As a student, it was an awesome
chance to practice real project management
and to take a design from concept to a physi-
cal structure. I learned an enormous amount
about both the technical aspects of gabions
and realistic construction and funding goals.
My greatest take away from the project has
been the strength in numbers; a project of
this scope can only happen with the contri-
butions of many.”
CommunityEffort
Aaron Thomas (fourth from left in top photo)
S T U D E N T H I G H L I G H T
15
S T U D E N T AWA R D S
AWA R D W I N N E R S
Undergraduate Carmen Gil (3rd from left) won First Place in the Physics and Nanoscience category at the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM for her presentation “A Theoretical Investigation of Ferromagnetism in Doped Transition Metal Dichalco-genide WSe2”. The conference was held in February in Washington, DC. Carmen then presented her research at the 249th ACS National Conference in Denver.
Recent grad, Brad Ganoe ‘15, receives an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Award with
his proposal on the development of semi-definite programming tech-niques for solving the quantum many-electron problem in chemistry. Brad will be attending University of California, Berkeley to obtain his PhD in Chemistry. NSF awarded the GRF to 2,000 individuals from among 16,500 applicants this year.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursu-ing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
NATIONAL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION
AWARD
WINNER
ChemE PhD Candidate, Kevin Ward, has
recently been awarded four fellowships:
The NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer
Institutes Fellowship, The NSF Graduate
Research Fellowship, The Chateaubriand
STEM Fellowship and The NASA Florida
Space Grant Consortium Dissertation
Improvement Fellowship.
Kevin joined the Department of Chemical
Engineering in Fall 2013 after completing
his BS in chemical engineering at North
Carolina State University. During his first semester, he joined Dr.
Ranga Narayanan’s lab to conduct research on fluid instabilities.
Since then, Kevin’s doctoral research has evolved into a study of
Faraday instability generated through both traditional mechanical
forcing and electrostatic forcing. This research involves both theoret-
ical and experimental studies conducted at UF, the University of Lille
1 in Lille, France, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in
Tsukuba, Japan. Applications of his research include enhanced
mixing in microfluidic devices, a deeper understanding of liquid
sloshing dynamics, space enabling operations, droplet movement,
and enhancements to a wide array of processes through utilization
of pulsatile forcing.
With his NSF EAPSI Fellowship, chose to travel to Tsukuba, Japan to
conduct research at the Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency (JAXA) along with Dr. Satoshi Matsumoto on Fara-
day instability generated via electrostatic oscillation.
The world-class research staff and availability of specialized
equipment at JAXA allowed Kevin to conduct experimen-
tal research that will be compared to his theoretical work
completed at UF.
With the NSF GRF, Kevin will fund the remainder of his
doctoral research on Faraday instability, as well as K-12
outreach and the broader dissemination of his research.
He plans to use the NASA Florida Space Grant Consor-
tium Dissertation Improvement Fellowship to fund travel to multiple
conferences, including the ASGSR 2015 Annual Meeting and the APS
DFD 2015 Annual Meeting. He will also use those funds to design and
produce experimental equipment for his research in France and Japan.
Kevin will use the Chateaubriand Fellowship to travel to Lille, France
in January 2016 to conduct research with Dr. Farzam Zoueshtiagh at
the University of Lille 1. He will spend 5 months in France to conduct
experimental research on Faraday instability generated via mechanical
oscillation in three-fluid systems, while pursuing a dual degree at UF
and the University of Lille 1. The research conducted during the Cha-
teaubriand fellowship will allow Kevin to validate theoretical models
for three fluid Faraday systems that were developed during the first
two years of his graduate study.
K E V I N WA R D Kevin Ward with his fiancée Kimberly Marshburn
D E P A R T M E N T O F C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G
P . O . B O X 1 1 6 0 0 5G A I N E S V I L L E , F L 3 2 6 1 1
W W W . C H E . U F L . E D U
E V E N T SThe AIChE Annual Meeting is the premier educational forum for chemical engineers interested in innovation and professional grow th. Academic and industr y exper t s wi l l cover wide range of topic s re levant to cut t ing-edge research, new technologies, and emerging grow th areas in chemical engineering.
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AIChE Annual MeetingS A LT L A K E C I T Y, U TA HN O V E M B E R 8 - 13