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DAVE C. SWALM SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING E-NEWSLETTER

 

Volume 2, Number 2

 

November/December, 2002

 

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FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD…

 

Happy New Year!  I hope this letter finds you well and refreshed after a holiday break.  We loaded up the family into our trusty Honda Odyssey, and spent 10 days in Virginia.  It snowed in Blacksburg on Christmas morning, and we had a “White Christmas”.  Thankfully the snow melted by the next day, so for me, it was an ideal white Christmas!

 

While in Blacksburg, we were doing some last minute shopping at a local mall.  While waiting at a stoplight, we pulled up behind another Odyssey.  Noel looked at the license plate, and remarked, “That car is from Mississippi”.  Not wanting to be outdone, I then said, “That car is from Oktibbeha County”.  It turns out they were some friends of ours from Starkville who also are originally from Virginia.  It is a small world when you happen to see someone you know 500 miles from home at a local mall! 

 

Well, this newsletter focuses almost exclusively on the 2002 AIChE Annual Meeting that was held in Indianapolis, IN in November of 2002.  Since the location was as close to Starkville as the annual meetings get, we rented one of the athletic buses and took about 40 students (both undergraduate and graduate) to the annual meeting.  AIChE put together some custom designed tee shirts for the MSU contingent to wear during the meeting, and our group put on an impressive display. 

 

As part of the meeting, MSU students participated in the ChE Car Contest, presented research posters and papers, and networked with other chemical engineering students across the country.  Awards were given for placing in the top 3 in the ChE Car Contest as well as for exceptional poster papers in the student poster contest.  In short, we really made a “splash” on the national scene.  I had a number of colleagues come up to me and to complement me on the quality of the program and the students at MSU.  I was very proud of our students and our growing national presence. 

 

This past summer, we completely redid our web pages.  They have a new look, and it should be easier to navigate around our web site.  If you haven’t done so already recently, I would invite you to check out the Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering WWW page (http://www.che.msstate.edu/). We are constantly updating the School WWW pages, so be sure and check back once every couple of weeks to see new pictures and stories.  I would especially direct you to visit the alumni page (http://www.che.msstate.edu/alumni/alumni_news/alumni_news.htm). Past issues of the Electronic newsletter will be posted to this site following distribution to the electronic email list. 

 

I would also encourage you to send in Alumni Updates.  I will put them in the newsletter (at the end) so that your former classmates can see what you are doing.  If you would like to contribute an update, just send it to me (schulz@che.msstate.edu). 

 

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the newsletter.   Go Dawgs!

 

 

CHEME CAR WINS THIRD PLACE AT NATIONAL MEETING

 

The Mississippi State ChemE Car Team brought home a 3rd place trophy at the national competition in Indianapolis.  Over 35 different universities had cars entered in the contest, and our entry this year was the first year that MSU has participated in the ChemE car competition. In the contest, the ChemE Car has to go a specified distance and must be powered by a chemical reaction.  The students must start the car from a starting line, and cannot interfere with the car in any way once it is underway.  The winners are selected based on how far from the target finish line the car actually stops.  Each car gets two runs and uses the best run for final placing.  The cars go over 100 feet, and the winning car finished straddling the finish line twice!  We had almost all of the MSU students watching the ChE competition, and serenaded the crowd with the MSU fight song.  At the end, we did a rousing “Go to H*** Ole Miss”, and several people asked us “who is Ole Miss”?  Does life get any better?

 

Congratulations to the ChemE Car Team on a job well done! 

 

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AIChE STUDENT CHAPTER SELECTED AS OUTSTANDING CHAPTER

 

For the second year in a row, Mississippi State’s AIChE student chapter was selected as an Outstanding Student Chapter.  This award is presently annually to those student chapters that show an exceptional level of participation, program quality, professionalism, and involvement in the university and community.  15 student chapters were selected for this honor including BYU, Florida Tech, Georgia Tech, Kansas State, Mississippi State, NJIT, North Carolina State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Purdue, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky-Lexington, Kentucky-Paducah, and South Carolina.  Dr. Atly Jefcoat serves as chapter advisor, and Jarrod Smith served as chapter president during the 2001-2002 academic year.  Congratulations to Atly and the student officers for another exceptional year!

 

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MSU STUDENTS PLACE IN STUDENT POSTER CONTEST

 

One of the events at the annual AIChE meeting is a student poster contest.  Students from universities across the U.S. present original research results at the poster session, and can receive awards based on the quality of their research and quality of their poster presentation.  A total of 145 posters were presented, with representatives from 66 universities participating.  The University of Puerto Rico had 32 poster papers, followed by the University of Pittsburgh with 8,  Mississippi State with 7, and all other universities with 4 or less participants.  Out of the 7 posters presented by MSU students, 6 received awards for the quality of their research work!  This is a superb testament to the exceptional quality of our students and the value of undergraduate research.  The students who participated in the poster contest, the title of their paper, and the award they received is as follows:

 

“Identification of Nitrogen Surface Species on Biomedical Implant Materials”, Holly Martin, Kirk H. Schulz, Joel Bumgardner, 1st Place, Materials Engineering and Sciences.

 

“Environmental Effects of Lead Resulting from Small Arms Training”, Michael Bestor, Mark Bricka, 1st Place, Environmental.

 

“Investigation of the Effect of Charge and Size on the Mobility of Ionic Species Under the Influence of an Electric Field in Sandy Soils”, Prashanth Buchireddy, Mark Bricka, 3rd Place, Environmental.

 

“A Critical Survey of Ethanol Production Techniques from Biomass Feedstocks”, Beth Hester, Katherine Taconi, Mark Zappi, W. Todd French, Lewis Brown, 1st Place – Green Engineering Poster Contest.

 

“Investigating the Enzymatic Degradation of Explosive Organic Compounds”, Alissa M. Willis, Kirk H. Schulz, W. Todd French, Mark Zappi, 3rd Place - Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering.

 

“Mesoporous TiO2 Silica for the Design of a Original, Photocatalytic Plug-Flow Reactor”, Otho Barnes, Transito Macias, Trent Jeffries, John McGillivray, and I. Atly Jefcoat.

 

“Preparation and Characterization of Rh-Co, Pd-Co, and Ru-Co Bimetallic Catalysts for CO2 Hydrogenation”, Sajeev Moorthiyedath, Kirk H. Schulz, 3rd Place, Catalysis and Reaction Engineering.

 

 

TWO MSU STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN “FACULTY OF THE FUTURE” SYMPOSIUM

 

AIChE also sponsors a special session for doctoral students interested in faculty careers.  During this session, each doctoral candidate presents a poster on their research project and has the opportunity to talk with different department heads and faculty members about career opportunities at their university.  MSU participated for the first time this fall in this session.  Katherine Taconi and Mitra Yoonesi both presented their dissertation work.  The titles of their posters are given below:

 

“Methanogenic Generation of Biogas from Synthesis-Gas Fermentation Wastewaters”, Katherine Taconi and Mark Zappi.

 

“Nanocomposites, Rheology, Mechanical Properties and Finite Element Modeling

of Intercalated and Exfoliated Clay/Resin Composites”, M.Yoonessi, H.Toghiani, C.U.Pittman, Jr. and W.L.Kingery.

 

 

 

FACULTY MEMBERS AND GRADUATE STUDENTS ACTIVE AT NATIONAL MEETING

 

Several MSU faculty members and graduate students also presented their research results or chaired technical sessions the AIChE meeting.  One of the highlights was the awarding of the 1st Place Poster Paper to Esteban Romano in the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division.  Esteban and his advisor will be recognized at the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering banquet at the 2003 AIChE National Meeting in San Francisco.

 

Sessions Chaired by MSU Faculty:

 

Characterizing and Modeling Industrial Crystallization

Daniel A. Green, Chair (DuPont)

Priscilla Hill, Vice-Chair

 

Department Heads Forum

Douglas K. Ludlow, Chair (University of Missouri-Rolla)

Kirk H. Schulz, Vice-Chair

 

Papers/Posters presented involving MSU Faculty and students:

 

“Reducing Diesel Emissions at Low Temperature”, Ling Deng, Jason M. Keith, Duane Abata (Michigan Tech), Kirk H. Schulz.

 

“Sulfur Dioxide Adsorption on Palladium-CSZ Model Catalysts”, Esteban J. Romano, Kirk H. Schulz.

 

“The Synthesis and Characterization of Palladium Doped Cerium Stabilized Zirconium Model (CSZ) Catalysts”, Melissa K. Graves, Kirk H. Schulz.

 

“Statistics of Multiple Particle Breakage Including Shape Factor”, Priscilla Hill.

 

“Methanogenic Generation of Biogas from Synthesis Gas Fermentation Wastewaters”, Mark Zappi, Katherine Taconi, W. Todd French, Lewis R. Brown.

 

“The Integration of Zero-Valent Metals and Advanced Oxidation for the Treatment of TNT Contaminated Waters”, Rafael Hernandez, Mark Zappi, Chiang-Hai Kuo, Jack Ford, and Susan Davenport-Sierra.

 

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