Special Seminars

Thursday, May 2, 2013
1:30 p.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Dr. Hunaid Nulwala
Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA
National Energy Technology Laboratory, Pittsburgh PA

"AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT: CRADLE TO DEPLOYMENT"

Constant improvement in overall quality of life is the direct result of new technologies. Bringing a new technology from basic ideas requires years of research activity and broader understanding of different aspects of science and engineering. In our case, these aspects encompass computational science, synthesis, fabrication, device development, and integration into larger systems. Integrated research allows us to determine real technology needs from the very beginning of research and development.

The main purpose of developing new materials is the ability to access targeted properties. To access specific properties, it is important to gain fundamental insight and translate that knowledge towards a problem. First step in materials development is determining structure property-relationship, which can be a daunting task. This is especially true in the case of ionic liquids (ILs). ILs properties can be tuned easily by structural variation quite easily but dialing right properties is difficult as these properties are the net product of complex inter- and intra-molecular interactions. These interactions include π –π coupling, ordering due to symmetry, Columbic interactions, hydrogen-bonding interactions, Van der Waals forces, steric constraints, and hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions. I will present our approach on how we have created property maps for ILs which allows us to screen millions of ionic liquids for CO2 solubility and selectivity.

Finally, we will focus on overlooked properties at the basic research level. Incorporating functional materials in devices not only requires accessing primary but secondary properties. For example ease of processing, service life, environmental aspects are key considerations which should be considered. A material scientist needs to comprehend multifaceted nature of functional materials including the need to find greener solutions in synthesis and fabrication. I will present specific scenarios where materials development and fabrication has benefited from computational guidance and systems analysis to come up with better design and materials.

Biography:
Hunaid Nulwala is a lead scientist and sub-coordinator at National Energy technology Laboratory (NETL) of U.S. Department of Energy and special faculty at Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University. His group performs highly integrated research in ionic liquids, polymer science, and gas separations. Hunaid Nulwala was born on September 21, 1976 in Pakistan. He attended the University of Karachi, Pakistan and in 1996 received his undergraduate degree in Business and Commerce. He also pursued a separate degree in polymer process engineering specifically focusing on polymer processing. After graduating, Hunaid went to the Rochester Institute of Technology and obtained a B.S. in polymer chemistry. He worked under Prof. Matt Miri on polymerization of PE/PP using Matallocenes catalysts. Hunaid then worked at Eastman Kodak, and GE global research. After some time in industrial research Hunaid went to the University of California Santa Barbara to study synthesis and polymerization behavior of vinyl-triazoles under Prof. Craig Hawker. Upon finishing his doctorate, Hunaid joined Dr. David Luebke’s group at NETL in 2009 and in 2001 he transitioned into his current position.

Thursday, April 18, 2013
2:00 p.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Dr. Carole C. Perry
School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG11 8NS, UK
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Boston, MA

"Bio-inspired Approaches to Functional Materials and Studies of the Abiotic-Biotic Interface"

Biological organisms are a constant source of inspiration for the development of new materials. For the research presented in this talk, spiders, mussels, sponges and plants have been our source of inspiration for the generation of new materials or new routes to materials. Starting from a consideration of the structure and form of minerals produced by living creatures I will show how our study of silica bio-minerals has led to the development of novel, low temperature routes to functional materials with potential application in cell culture, bone regeneration and optics. Using plants as a source of inspiration I will discuss how we have developed several approaches to fabricate superhydrophobic materials using biology as our muse. Spiders have been our starting point for the development of strong multifunctional materials- an example of materials that support bone growth will be described. For all the experimental systems we study, the interface between the bio-component and the abiotic material is a very important factor in determining the properties of the composite materials formed. A brief overview of our approach to exploring these interactions will be given.

Biography:
Carole C. Perry is a professor of chemistry at Nottingham Trent University, in the United Kingdom. Her research interests lie where biology, chemistry, and physics intersect, and are directed in particular toward understanding how biomolecules and inorganic materials interact in aqueous media. Perry received her BA and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. She has been a visiting research fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Weizmann Institute of Science, IL and guest professor at the Universität Karlsuhe, DE and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, FR. She also served as an elected trustee and council member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and chaired Heads of Chemistry UK. She is currently the Edward, Frances and Shirley B. Daniells Fellow and Wyss Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, a visiting professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and a research professor in the Institute for lasers, photonics and biophotonics at the University of Buffalo, New York. In January 2013 she was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson research merit award for her work at the biomolecule-mineral interface.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013
9:15 a.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Dr. Anne Thümen & Dr. Roland Hingmann
BASF SE, Advanced Materials & Systems Research, D-67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany

"Global Megatrends - Changes and Challenges for Advanced Materials Development"

Global Megatrends such as Growing & Aging Population, Urbanization, Energy Demand & Climate Protection, and Globalization affect our daily lives and create new needs and corresponding markets with substantial growth potential. Megatrends are drivers for innovation and stimulate research and development. Sustainability and considerate use of our resources are common nominators for all kinds of development. Against this background, technical options making use of advanced polymeric materials may become one of the most important problem-solvers of the 21st century.

Polymers, polymer blends, and compounds with their specific performance profile offer numerous innovative solutions, in line with today’s demands. In particular highly flexible shape forming, light weight and a wide spectrum of mechanical properties provide polymers with attractiveness for numerous applications. Furthermore, making use of the ease foamability of polymer systems, access to an additional degree of freedom in the spectrum of properties open up.

Along with the steadily increasing requirements for advanced material properties, technological challenges for polymer work-up and processing arise. To mention some examples, complex blend systems with stable morphology, high content of filler at excellent level of dispersion, incorporation of sensitive additives as well ingredients with low bulk density have to be reliably put into practice. And finally, it is crucial to transfer properties from laboratory scale to the level of manufacturing without performance loss and with minimum number of trials. The presentation will elucidate the Global Megatrends, show some examples of recent technology & product development work, and address needs for future efforts in research and development.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013
2:00 p.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Dr. Siddharth V. Patwardhan
Chemical & Process Engineering, University of Strathclyde, UK

"Green Nanomaterials with Applications"

Silica-based nanomaterials are used in wide applications such as in catalysis, food and drug technology, biomedical materials, water purification, tyres and paints. The industrial production of silica-based nanomaterials often utilises harsh conditions and/or produce toxic wastes. In contrast, biological organisms, through biosilicification, produce elaborate and ordered biominerals under physiological conditions. Taking inspiration from such biosilicifying organisms, we have developed green routes for the controlled synthesis of silica. This presentation will demonstrate that the biomimetic technology is scalable (suitable for industrial production) with the potential to reform current industrial processes. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that these materials, due to their green synthesis are suitable for applications environmental remediation, catalysis, biocatalysis and drug delivery (see Figure). This presentation will cover each of these applications of bioinspired silica with suitable examples.

Biography
Dr. Siddharth V. Patwardhan (SP) obtained his first degree in Petrochemical Engineering from the University of Pune, India (2000) followed by Master of Science (2002) and PhD (2003) degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, USA. He was appointed as a Visiting Scholar and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Delaware and further as a postdoctoral researcher at Nottingham Trent University. SP moved to University of Strathclyde in 2010 as a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering.

SP has over 10 years of international experience in materials at biointerface and has pioneered bioinspired green routes to silica-based porous and nanostructured materials. This research has led to 53 publications and over 40 oral presentations at international and national conferences. In recent years, he has secured funding from the Royal Society, Japanese New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, British Petroleum and EPSRC. SP has co-organized symposia at ACS conferences and he is an associate editor of journal SILICON. Recently, he has been selected on an EPSRC forum for Manufacturing the Future. He serves on Bridging the Gaps panel at the university.

Monday, February 18, 2013
2:00 p.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Dr. Ashleigh J. Fletcher
Chemical & Process Engineering, University of Strathclyde, UK

"Adsorption Processes in Novel Porous Materials"

The use of adsorbents is industrially important with applications including gas separation/purification, pollution control and as catalyst supports. Adsorption on such porous materials can be a very complex process due to surface/structural heterogeneity in classical adsorbents and flexibility or concurrent processes in novel materials such as metal organic frameworks (MOFs); this new category of materials is also attractive with respect to their tailorable chemical functionality, where physical properties of a host material can potentially be altered by the inclusion of guest species.

Time resolved measurement of adsorption processes allows the elucidation of kinetic and thermodynamic data, particularly important for charging times and the determination of heats of adsorption; the latter has seen significant interest in recent years as a consequence of the study of unsaturated metal centres within MOFs, which can be used to coordinate molecules of interest, often invoking visual or magneto-/electro-chemical responses. Consideration of the isothermal and kinetic data has allowed the presence of surface and structural effects to be detected, which have been further investigated using spectroscopic and/or crystallographic methods. Data presented will show the significance of such effects in the chemistry in the adsorption of key molecules, including hydrogen.

Biography
Dr. Ashleigh J. Fletcher (AJF) trained as a chemist (University of Durham, 1997) before completing a PhD (2000) and post-doctoral work (2000-2008) in carbon science within the Northern Carbon Research Laboratories, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, under the supervision of Prof. K. Mark Thomas. Now a lecturer at Strathclyde (Chemical Engineering, since 2008), she has fifteen years of experience in leading edge adsorption dynamics research, evinced by a record of high impact publications (h-index 15; total citations >1900). She has worked on the development of sorption systems to extend capabilities for the measurement of very low vapour pressure conditions and its application in flowing systems, including the study of competitive adsorption effects in such environments. She has expertise in analytical techniques for determination of adsorbate composition, which has led to the development of widely adopted kinetic models and analysis methods for a diverse range of adsorbents Overall the work has increased the international knowledge base for adsorption principles and understanding of processes and dynamics, leading to improvements in filter technology and a change in mind-set towards abatement and amelioration techniques. AJF’s work focusses on sorption dynamics and the determination of flexible responses in porous media and hydrogen adsorption and trapping; as well as the complimentary fields of liquid adsorption and materials synthesis and characterisation.

Thursday, February 14, 2013
1:30 p.m.
Aggarwal Lecture Hall, Room 130
Polymer Engineering Academic Center

Giuseppe Titomanlio
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Italy

"Modeling Morphology Evolution during Solidification of iPP in Processing Conditions"

During polymer processing, crystallization takes place during or soon after flow. In most of cases, the flow field dramatically influences both the crystallization kinetics and the crystal morphology. On their turn, crystallinity and morphology affect the product properties. Also because of the industrial interest into the phenomenon, flow-induced crystallization results to be quite intriguing for researchers, who in the last decades tried to identify the main parameter involved from both experimental and modeling points of view. In this work, we present an approach to model the phenomenon of flow-induced crystallization aimed at predicting the final morphology after processing. The approach is based on:

• Modeling the crystallization kinetics in quiescent conditions in a very wide range of cooling rates and pressures (those of interest for polymer processing)
• Modeling the molecular stretch evolution by means of a model simple enough and easy to be implemented in simulation codes for polymer processing
• Identification of the effect of flow on crystallization kinetics by means of simple experiments
• Interpretation of the FIC effect by a simple model based on the increase of the thermodynamic crystallization temperature by effect of the molecular stretch determined by the flow.
• Model predictions reproduce most of the features of final morphology observed in the samples after solidification.

Biography
Giuseppe Titomanlio graduated in Chemical Engineering at University of Naples. Soon after graduation he moved to the University of Palermo where, after some years, he was appointed as Professor of Chemical Engineering in 1986.
In 1991 he moved to the Chemical and Food Engineering Department of the University of Salerno, where he was Department Chairman from '97 to '99; from 2001 to 2004 he was President of the "Association of Italian University Researchers in fields of interest to Chemical Engineering". From 2004 to 2010 he was Dean of the Chemical and Food Engineering School at University of Salerno. Since 2009 he is in the Board of Directors of the University of Salerno.
The research activity of prof. Titomanlio focuses mainly on properties and processing of polymers, with particular interest in the injection molding process; morphology, solidification and cooling stresses evolution during cooling and crystallization of thermoplastic polymers under polymer processing conditions.
The results of these activities resulted in about 150 papers published in international scientific journals and numerous communications to conferences.
He was organizer and chairman of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Polymer Processing Society (PPS24), held in Salerno in June 2008; since 2009 he is in the Executive Committee of the Polymer Processing Society.