Category: Research

Kamath and Minakata Model an Advanced Oxidation Process

Daisuke Minakata
Daisuke Minakata

Daisuke Minakata has published “Emerging Investigators series: Ultraviolet and free chlorine aqueous-phase advanced oxidation process: kinetic simulations and experimental validation,” in Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology with Divya Kamath.

DOI:10.1039/C8EW00196K

Extract

An emerging advanced oxidation process uses ultraviolet light and free chlorine to produce active hydroxyl radicals and chlorine-derived radicals to degrade a variety of organic compounds in water. We developed a UV/free chlorine elementary reaction-based kinetic model for a test compound, acetone, and its transformation products. The elementary reaction pathways were predicted by quantum mechanical calculations, and the reaction rate constants were predicted using previously developed linear free energy relationships.

This article is part of the themed collections: Ultraviolet-based Advanced Oxidation Processes (UV AOPs) and Emerging Investigator Series.

Related:

Break It Down: Understanding the Formation of Chemical Byproducts During Water Treatment

Elucidating the Elementary Reaction Pathways and Kinetics of Hydroxyl Radical-Induced Acetone Degradation in Aqueous Phase Advanced Oxidation Processes

Jarek Drelich and David Watkins are Distinguished Professors

Last September, University President Glenn Mroz and Jackie Huntoon, provost and vice president for academic affairs, announced the establishment of two new titles created to recognize outstanding faculty: Distinguished Professor and University Professor.

Jarek Drelich
Distinguished Professor Jarek Drelich

The title of Distinguished Professor recognizes outstanding faculty members who have made substantial contributions to the University as well as their discipline but are not presently recognized through an endowed position or faculty fellowship.

Jaroslaw (Jarek) Drelich and David Watkins are among the recipients in the inaugural group of Distinguished Professors.

Drelich is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Adhesion of fine particles, biodegradable implants, surface wetting, and colloidal properties are among his research interests. Drelich leads SURFI, Surface Innovations at Michigan Tech. The SURFI research team recently reviewed the properties of fish scales in Advanced Biosystems, identifying many promising qualities that could be beneficial to material and surface innovators. Drelich also spearheaded the acquisition of a new atomic force microscope for looking at single molecules on a surface.

David Watkins
Distinguished Professor David Watkins

Watkins is a professional engineer and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has been at Michigan Tech since 1999, teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses in fluid mechanics, engineering hydrology, water resources management, and others. He directs an international capstone design program, co-directed a Peace Corps Master’s International program, and advises a student chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA. Watkins maintains an active research program in water resources systems engineering, hydroclimatic forecasting, and climate change adaptation. His current research projects include robust water resources decision making in south Florida and understanding the climate impacts of food, energy, and water consumption.

The confidential process for selecting recipients spans the academic year and recipients for each award were notified in May. A Distinguished Professor is recognized for their noteworthy research, invited lectures, external awards, citations, continuing contributions to the advancement of their field, and other criteria. They are nominated by faculty members, departments, programs, or schools. Distinguished Professors will not exceed 10 percent of the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty in a specific college or school at any time.

Mapping Lahar Threats in the Aftermath of Volcán de Fuego

Preliminary mapping lahar threats in Guatemala—vital for communities affected by the eruption.
Preliminary mapping lahar threats in Guatemala—vital for communities affected by the eruption.
Michigan Tech Geophysicist, Volcanologist Rudiger Escobar Wolf
Volcanologist Rudiger Escobar Wolf

In the aftermath of the eruption of Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala, the risk now is for lahars triggered by extreme rain events. Guatemala’s rainy season started in May and typically runs through the month of October. Lahar hazards are the result of fresh (loose) eruptive deposits on steep slopes that experience heavy rainfall, creating mud and debris flows that can scour landscapes and inundate lower lying areas. The hazards are exacerbated by the steepness of the slopes, recent loss of vegetation, and the rainy season.

Rudiger Escobar Wolf, a volcanologist at Michigan Technological University and native of Guatemala, shares a set of preliminary crisis hazard maps of the threat of lahars at Fuego volcano in Guatemala, created with INSIVUMEH, Guatemala’s Instituto Nacional de Sismologia, Vulcanologia, Meterologia e Hidrologia, as well as USGS/VDAP, and others.

Volcanological information: Preliminary map of threat by lahars with scenarios of moderate and intense rainfall.

VOLCANO DE FUEGO: @insivumehgt unveils a preliminary map of threat by lahars with scenarios of moderate and intense rains.

Lahars often initiate at upper most elevations and flow down through stream channels and gullies. Scientists forecast lahar hazards using computer models of the slopes in conjunction with estimates of the lahar volume at the outset, which is very challenging to estimate. For instance, in October 2005, Santa Ana erupted in El Salvador and lahars from this fresh ash were triggered overnight due to Hurricane Stan. And in November 2009, Hurricane Ida triggered devastating lahars from San Vicente volcano. Those deposits were from a large eruption of a nearby Ilopango Volcano that occurred more than 1500 years prior and had been sitting precariously on the slopes of San Vicente until 36″ of rain fell in 18 hours.

Escobar Wolf has worked on the most active three volcanoes in Guatemala (Fuego, Pacaya, and Santaguito) since he was a little boy. Michigan Tech Volcanology Professor (Emeritus) Bill Rose and others worked with him as a young adult and recruited him to Michigan Tech for graduate studies. Escobar Wolf is in frequent communication with CONRED (sort of like FEMA) and INSIVUMEH (sort of like USGS) about the eruptive symptoms of Guatemala’s active volcanoes.

As a PhD student in 2010 Rudiger Escobar Wolf outlined volcanic risks and the benefits of an early warning system to (now former) Guatemalan Vice President Dr. Rafael Espada, and Alejandro Maldonado, executive secretary of CONRED.
As a PhD student in 2010 Rudiger Escobar Wolf outlined volcanic risks and the benefits of an early warning system to (now former) Guatemalan Vice President Dr. Rafael Espada, and Alejandro Maldonado, executive secretary of CONRED.

The eruptive activity of Fuego Volcano is so frequent, in fact, it is the classic “cry wolf” scenario.

“Most volcanoes are either ‘on’ or ‘off’, but Fuego has been simmering since 1999,” says Kyle Brill, a doctoral candidate in geophysics at Michigan Tech. Brill also monitors seismic activity at Fuego Volcano. “Less than one percent of the volcanoes around the world have had eruptions lasting longer than a decade, and Guatemala has three volcanoes that always seem active to some level,” he says. “Questions naturally arose in hindsight in the days following the eruption as to why people around Fuego didn’t receive/heed evacuation warnings earlier, and the answer to that, sadly, was that Fuego is so active normally that it is very difficult to forecast when changes in activity could become deadly.”

Brill is a returned Peace Corps volunteer. He served in Guatemala under the Environmental Conservation and Income Generation Program as a Master’s International student in the Mitigation of Natural Geologic Hazards program at Michigan Tech.

Kyle Brill on Pacaya Volcano
Kyle Brill on Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

Despite the frequent eruptive behaviors, aspects of this eruption were much different than recent events at Fuego. In particular, some of the pyroclastic flows overbanked the drainages.

NPR’s Here & Now on WBUR-FM features an interview with Rudiger Escobar Wolf, Ph.D. ’13, MS ’07, talking about the Volcán de Fuego eruption. Listen at “Rescue Operations Underway In Guatemala After Deadly Volcano Eruption

Find out more about lahars from the USGS Volcano Hazards Program

Check out drone footage taken one week after the eruption of Volcán de Fuego, by Jozef Stano

 

 

 

Acoustics in Arctic Ice Sheets

Research Sites in the Arctic showing a collage of four snowy locations with researchers and equipment
Research Sites in the Arctic

As more human activity enters the Arctic, it is important to be able to detect and classify the resulting impact from human behaviors. Examples of anthropogenic impact sources might include shipping through the Northwest Passage, natural resource exploration, and tourism.

A simple way to measure this impact is to use a sparse array of acoustic and seismic sensors. In order to do that, we need to understand the propagation of acoustic energy through and between the ice, air, and water domains. With this work we begin to understand the energy propagation, which will guide us in designing and building future sensing systems in the evolving Arctic.

This work has been published by Miles B. Penhale, Andrew R. Barnard, Robert Shuchman, “Multi-Modal and short-range transmission loss in thin, ice-covered, near-shore Arctic waters,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 143(5).

https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5038569

Research Excellence Fund Awards Announced for 2018

Jeremy Bos in the labThe Vice President for Research Office announced the 2018 Research Excellence Fund (REF) awards and thanked the volunteer review committees, as well as the deans and department chairs, for their time spent on this important internal research award process. The awardees in the College of Engineering are listed below:

Infrastructure Enhancement (IE) Grants

Portage Health Foundation (PHF) Infrastructure Enhancement (IE) Grants

  • Jingfeng Jiang “JJ” (BME/LSTI) – Electromechanical Biomechanical testing apparatus (ACUMEN [3KN systems])

Research Seed (RS) Grants

Portage Health Foundation (PHF) Mid-Career (MC)

BME Researchers Review Tissue Engineered Vascular Graft Advancements

TEVG Diagram of blood flow and components
Developing a biocompatible blood-contacting surface remains a major challenge for tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs). This paper reviews the current state of TEVGs with an emphasis on the blood-contacting surface, which includes general vascular physiology and developmental challenges, materials currently employed in TEVGs, and strategies to modify blood-contacting surfaces to resist thrombosis and control cellular recruitment.

Tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) are beginning to achieve clinical success and hold promise as a source of grafting material when donor grafts are unsuitable or unavailable.

Daniel Radke, Wenkai Jia, Dhavan Sharma, Kemin Fena, Guifang Wang, Jeremy Goldman, and Feng Zhao have a review accepted in Advanced Healthcare Materials. The article “Tissue Engineering at the Blood-Contacting Surface: A Review of Challenges and Strategies in Vascular Graft Development” is an invited review which is a follow-up to a previous research publication: “Aligned nanofibrous cell-derived extracellular matrix for anisotropic vascular graft construction,” Advanced Healthcare Materials. 2017; 6:1601333 (1-6).

This is a timely and comprehensive review article that references extensive publications. It covers significant technological advances regarding tissue engineered vascular grafts for cardiac disease treatment. The review focuses on the challenge of developing a biocompatible blood-contacting surface.

The research group includes faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students in the department.

Michigan Tech at Earth and Space 2018

2018 ASCE Earth and Space banner

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Earth and Space 2018 conference was held in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 9-12. Michigan Tech was well represented by several talks. Paul van Susante (MEEM) is the current chair of ASCE’s Aerospace Division that organized the conference and he gave two talks: “Minerals from Space: Terrestrial and Extra-terrestrial Perspectives” and “Robotic Mars and Lunar Landing Pad Construction Using In-Situ Rocks.” He also chaired two sessions, served as a student paper judge and handed out division awards as well as the Columbia medal to Paul Wooster from SpaceX on behalf of Elon Musk.

In addition, Gregory Odegard (MEEM) presented at the pre-conference shortcourse: “Design and Analysis of Composite Materials for Aerospace Structures.” Two of his students, Hashim Al Mahmud and Will Pisani, attended the shortcourse and each presented a paper. The papers titles were: “Multiscale Modeling of PEEK Using Reactive Molecular Dynamics Modeling and Micromechanics” and “Predicting the Effective Mechanical Properties of Graphene Nanoplatelet-Carbon Fiber-Epoxy Hybrid Composites Using ReaxFF: A Multiscale Modeling Approach”.

Wind Turbine Blade diagram with parts labeled.The 2017 best paper award for the Journal of Aerospace Engineering (published by ASCE by the Aerospace Division) was awarded to “Design and Simulation of Active External Trailing-Edge Flaps for Wind Turbine Blades on Load Reduction” by Xiao Sun, Qingli Dai, Muraleekrishnan Menon and Fernando Ponta in the September 2017 issue.

https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000771

Kristina Swallow, ASCE President, attended the entire conference which concluded with a tour of NASA Glenn Research Center. For more information, visit the ASCE Earth and Space website.

Ye Sun Develops Convenient Heart Monitor

Ye Sun
Ye Sun

HOUGHTON — According to one study, more than 90 percent of U.S. medical expenses are spent on patients with chronic diseases. According the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, $190 billion are spent on cardiovascular disease that in many cases, patients are required to wear a heart monitor day and night. For those patients, heart monitoring will soon become easier, more comfortable, and more convenient, thanks to Michigan Technological University Researcher Ye (Sarah) Sun.

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Graham Jaehnig.

2018 SURF Award Recipients in Engineering

SURF graphicThe Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program will fund 25 students from across the University with funds from the office of the Pavlis Honors College and the Vice President for Research.

Previous SURF award recipients have included Goldwater Scholarship and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipients. Since 2002, SURF students have co-authored 78 peer reviewed publications.

This year’s recipients, project titles, and advisors are listed online.

Honorable Mention went to Kiaya Caspers, Travis Durgan, Elisha Earley and Ashley Lingle.

By Will Cantrell.

Biomedical Engineering Majors

Stephanie Jewell
Biomedical Engineering / Mechanical
William Cook / KIP
Controlled Breathing and Automatic Cardiovascular Control

Kaylee Meyers
Rupak Rajachar / Biomedical Engineering
Evaluating the Influence of Matrix Stiffness on the Activation of MMPs in Tendinopathy

Alexander Oliver
Jeremy Goldman / Biomedical Engineering
Characterizing the Inflammatory Response to Zinc Stent Materials

Brennan Vogl
Smitha Rao / Biomedical Engineering
Monitoring migration of cancer cells using a microfluidic device

Chemical Engineering Major

Satyen Dhamankar
Chemical Engineering / Mathematics
Benjamin Ong / Mathematical Sciences
Accelerated Boundary Integral Methods

Civil Engineering Major

Timothy Stone
Don Lafreniere / Social Sciences
Exploring the Social Determinants of health and Disease Outbreak Patterns in Children in Early Twentieth Century Calumet

Geological Engineering Major

Katelyn Kring
Snehamoy Chatterjee / GMES
Spatial Interpolation of Rock Quality Designation to Design Underground Support System for Eagle Mine

Mechanical Engineering Majors

Dennis J Byard
Joshua Pearce / Materials Science
Increasing Maker Manufacturing through 3D Printing with Reclaimed Plastic & Direct Drive Pellet Extrusion

Aaron Dean
Pasi Lautala / Civil and Environmental Engineering
Using Naturalistic Driving Data and Machine Learning to Predict Accident Risk at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings

Eric Houck
Mo Rastgaar / Mechanical Engineering
Magneto-Rheological Fluids Create a Natural Walking Gait in Ankle-Foot Prostheses

Mark Kulie Publishes on Global Distribution of Snow Precipitation

Journal of ClimateAssistant Professor Mark Kulie, Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences, co-authored “Global distribution of snow precipitation features and their properties from three years of GPM observations” with Abishek Adhikari and Chuntao Liu in the Journal of Climate.

https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0012.1

The goal of the research is to optimize global snowfall estimates using satellite-based radar. Seasonal and daily variations of snow features and their properties are analyzed over Northern and Southern hemispheric land and ocean separately. The study indicates that stronger variations are found in the Northern hemisphere.

Follow Mark Kulie on Twitter (@MTUsnow).