Sangareddy: Pradeep K Agrawal, Faculty and Chair, Department of Chemical Engineering, Michigan Technological University, US, on Monday said biomass be it agriculture waste, forest residues or crop remanants can be used to produce chemicals and fuels. The discarded portion of municipal solid waste (MSW) was another inexpensive resource for producing hydergen and carbon, he said.
Human NatureA breakthrough called CRISPR has given us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing diseases, reshaping the biosphere, and designing our own children. Human Nature is a provocative exploration of CRISPR’s far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting, and the bioengineers who are testing its limits. How will this new power change our relationship with nature? What will it mean for human evolution? To begin to answer these questions we must look back billions of years and peer into an uncertain future.
A panel discussion with Dr. Paul Goetsch, Dr. Caryn Heldt, and Dr. Alexandra Morrison will follow the film.
This film is sponsored by the Department of Biological Sciences and the Health Research Institute.
93 minutes
HOUGHTON — Within six years, targeted gene editing has gone from a pipe dream to routine.
Targeting changes became easier with the use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). The system, discovered by scientist Francisco Mojica, is used by bacteria, which use genetic strands from viruses to repel future invasions.
Heldt’s lab works on gene therapy, including how to manufacture large amounts of gene therapy drugs at a reasonable price. They focus on viral gene therapies, where viruses are modified to replicate not themselves, but a gene missing in a person. Clinical trials on gene therapy for hemophiliacs have been promising, Heldt said; they lack the Factor 8 gene, which causes blood to clot. After one dose of gene therapy, people who once had to go to the hospital after incidents as minor as running into the side of a table now have enough clotting ability to go only once or twice a year for more serious cuts.
“One of the really amazing things with this particular therapy is they’re only making 10% of the factor 8 a normal person makes,” said Heldt, director of Tech’s Health Research Institute. “So it doesn’t take a lot.”
Lei Pan (ChemEng/GLRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $159,999 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.
The project is entitled, “Collaborative Research: Bubble Impacting a Curved Surface: A Sustainable Way to Sanitize Produce.”
This is a potential three-year project.
By Sponsored Programs.
Cleaning practices using microbubbles have been proven to be a sustainable and environmentally benign sanitation method in a wide range of industrial applications. When a stream of bubbles impact and slide on a surface, contaminants on the surface can be removed due to the strong force generated by the bubbles.
Bubble-cleaning of agricultural produce like fruits and vegetables has not been studied extensively. Potentially, this method could be used to minimize cases of food poisoning affecting millions of people every year, since bubble streams could be used to remove and inactivate pathogenic microorganisms from produce surfaces.
This research project could lead to a novel technology for an environmentally benign sanitization process for raw fruits and vegetables. The method could even be applied to other technological processes such as semiconductor manufacturing.
Lei Pan is Principal Investigator on a project that has received a $293,614 research and development contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The project is entitled, “Temporal and Spatial Characterization of Respirable Coal Mine Dust Using Area Monitoring Devices and X-Ray CT.” This is a potential two-year project.
By Sponsored Programs.
Dr. Pradeep Agrawal presented this award to Summer Oley.
The Chair’s Award for Outstanding ChE Senior recognizes a particular student in the graduating class whose actions embody excellence. Excelling in academics is expected, but the recipient must also exhibit the traits of character, leadership, and service–to-others that are valued to the department.
Dr. John Sandell presented the award to Sarah Boyd.
This award recognizes the winner of the Award for Excellence in Communication from the Department of Chemical Engineering for the academic year.
Dr. John Sandell presented the award to Charlie Biyong.
This award recognizes a student who has exhibited exemplary ethics and admirable professional conduct during Plant Design and Unit Operations experiences, and throughout their academic career at Michigan Technological University.
Dr. Julia King presented awards to James Sutton, Adam Schmidt, Noelle Eveland, and Sarah Boyd.
Dr. Julia King presented awards to Madison Paul, Nicholas Olson, Logan Piegols, Kayla Furmanski, and Robert Dupont.
This award recognizes outstanding technical skills in the laboratory, outstanding teamwork and professionalism, effective oral and written communication, and strong adherence to process safety practices as recognized by your peers and supported by the faculty of the department. This award is in memory of Dr. Mariott W. Bredekamp.
Maggie Evans, Amelia Henrickson, Laura Nitz, Madison Peggs
Michael Verbeke, Andrew Watson, Missing: Zachary Oldenburg, Sam Root
William Otto, Keegan Kroening, Seth Kriz, Bailey Mohrenweiser
Dr. Jeana Collins
Dr. Caryn Heldt, Dr. Faith Morrison, Dr. Timothy Eisele
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced more than $450,000 in funding for six Phase II student teams as part of the People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) grant program. These teams, made up of undergraduate and graduate students from across the country, are building upon their successes in Phase I of the P3 grant competition where they designed innovate solutions to real-world environmental and public health challenges. With Phase II funding, the teams will now further develop those projects and designs to ensure they can be sustainably implemented in the field.
Michigan Tech is a recipient for the project Separation and Recovery of Individual Components from the End-of-Life Lithium-Ion Batteries.
Read more at EPA News Releases.
The principal investigator is Assistant Professor Lei Pan.
Lithium-ion battery technology has become a state-of-the-art energy storage solution for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy. Because these batteries are expected to last only 2-10 years, they will enter the waste stream after reaching the end of their life cycles. The objective of the phase II project is to scale up the Li-ion battery recycling process from the bench scale that has been completed in the phase I project to a small-scale production prototype.
This project will provide approximately five undergraduate research assistant positions to students of diverse background at Michigan Technological University. These students will gain hands-on experience and interact with industrial partners. In addition, undergraduate students will be given opportunities to attend national and local conferences to present their research. The team will develop a mini mobile lab for high-school and middle-school teachers to teach engineering in their classrooms.
Lei Pan (ChE/GLRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $48,154 research and development contract from Argonne National Laboratory.
The project is titled “Investigation to Separate Lithium-ion Battery Active Cathode Materials by Chemistry Using Froth Flotation.”
This is a 14-month project.
By Sponsored Programs.
At an awards program in the Memorial Union Ballroom Wednesday (Jan. 9, 2018), staff members were honored with the Staff Council Making a Difference Award.
The Behind the Scenes Award was given to Jerry Norkol, master machinist, Chemical Engineering.
As one letter of support states “Jerry has always been available to help with various tasks in my lab or office, most things you would never notice. Whether it is helping hang things on the concrete walls, installing a rug, assembling furniture, installing laboratory equipment, making modifications to equipment and materials that accommodate my experiments, ordering parts or finding gas regulators, Jerry is efficient and helpful.”
Work by Rebecca Ong (ChE) and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University was highlighted by the Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research (BER).
The work compared experimental fuel yields from five different potential bioenergy feedstocks and determined that a lignocellulosic ethanol refinery could use a range of plant types without having a major impact on the amount of ethanol produced per acre.
Refineries to convert biomass into fuels often rely on just one feedstock. If the refineries could accept more than one feedstock, it would greatly benefit refinery operation. Scientists at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center investigated how five different feedstocks affected process and field-scale ethanol yields.
Lei Pan (ChE) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is titled “I-Corps: Non-Destructive Separation Technologies for Li-ion Battery Recycling.” This is a six-month project.
By Sponsored Programs.
The proposed innovation minimizes the use of raw materials from mining, enables the long-term material availability, stabilizes the supply chain, and reduces the life-cycle cost. Additionally, recycling Li-ion batteries using the proposed innovation generates zero secondary wastes and thus minimizes environmental footprint.
The proposed technology separates and recovers valuable materials while preserving their original functional integrity. The upcycled active battery materials can be reused in new Li-ion batteries. The proposed solution is much more energy efficient and cost effective compared to the existing processes, for which both processes involve a conversion of active cathode materials to metal alloys or metal ions in solution.