C h e m i C a l e n g i n e e r i n g

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Gary Powers, A Man of Vision, Dedication and Inspiration September 18, 1945 - July 23, 2007

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M e s s a g e F r o m t h e D e p a r t m e n t h e a D

Dear Alumni:

As this newsletter is being written, the summer is drawing to a close and I can literally hear the new students arriving on campus to participate in the various orientation programs offered to help them integrate into campus life. The summer and the preceding year have been extremely active as you will see from further perusal of this edition of our newsletter.

Unfortunately, the summer ended on a sad note with the passing of our great friend and colleague Professor Gary Powers. Gary was a friend to everyone and a wonder-ful mentor to thousands of our students over the past 30 years. In his memory the department is establishing the Gary Powers Memorial Scholarship with contributions from the many individuals whose lives were touched by Gary during their time at Carnegie Mellon. Everyone here will miss him.

The principal issue on our radar continues to be the renovation of Doherty Hall. While this has been a project of the future for many years, we are now in the midst of the process with about one more year to go. Over the course of the summer, the department offices were temporarily relocated into the Rothfus Lab while the first floor departmental offices were renovated, brought up to current building codes and made ADA accessible. We just moved in last week and it will take some time to unload the boxes and to get settled into our new digs. This is just the first step, however, in a multistep process that is described in a bit more detail on one of the following pages.

My colleagues and our students continue to do great things in the field of chemical engineering and to receive outstanding recognition for their achievements. Over the past year Professors Lee White, Mohammad Islam, Larry Biegler and Erik Ydstie have all won national awards for contributions to their respective fields of research. In addition we have been joined this summer by Professor Nick Sahinidis who was recently awarded the Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize for Excellence in Computational Mathematical Programming from the Mathematical Programming Society.

The department continues to grow in size. This past year we welcomed 30 new Ph.D. students and four Masters degree students into the graduate program, the largest class of all time. In addition, the undergraduate student body has continued the growth that has been occurring over the past four years. The entering sopho-more class has in excess of 80 students and is the largest that it has been in the past 30 years since the boom in chemical engineering enrollments that occurred in the early 1980s’.

Another big opportunity that has opened up for the department is in the area of energy research in collaboration with the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory. Over the past year, we have been working with the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University to establish an energy research consortium to formulate and conduct an energy research program in collaboration with the NETL. Initially this will involve eight faculty members at each of the three universities including David Sholl, John Kitchin, Larry Biegler and myself from Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon. This effort is just getting off the ground with the funding of ~$17M of research projects over the next two years.

All in all, many great changes are taking place in the department and the remainder of this newsletter affords you the opportunity to learn about these in more depth.

Andy

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Gary J. Powers, Professor of Chemical

Engineering at Carnegie Mellon Univer-

sity, passed away on July 23, 2007. He

is survived by his wife Susan and their six

children. Gary received degrees from the

University of Michigan (B.S., Ch.E., 1967)

and from the University of Wisconsin

(Ph.D., Ch.E., 1971). He served on the

faculty of MIT before joining Carnegie

Mellon in 1974.

Gary Powers was an outstanding engi-

neering educator, infusing students with

his passion. He taught the introductory

course in chemical engineering empha-

sizing concepts of process synthesis

and invention of process flowsheets. In

that course he organized the chemical

car competition that freshmen students

enjoyed so much. Gary created unique

inquiry-based laboratory projects and

supportive learning environments for un-

dergraduates. Most recently, he devised

a project for the Unit Operations Lab in

which seniors were challenged to make a

polyester from bio-feedstocks. In the safe-

ty course that Gary taught to undergradu-

ate and graduate students, he presented

concepts and techniques developed in his

research and shared his vast experiential knowledge. He was active

in engineering outreach to K-12 students through programs at the

Carnegie Science Center. Gary was one of the most popular and

well-liked professors at Carnegie Mellon. He was unique in getting to

know all the students very well, being a true mentor and advisor to all

of them. Graduating seniors frequently selected him for the “Kun Li

Award for Excellence in Education” as the faculty member who most

impacted their lives.

Gary Powers was a leading researcher in process systems engineer-

ing. He did pioneering research in safety and in process synthesis.

As a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin, he developed with

Jeff Siirola the first computer program for synthesizing process flow-

sheets. He co-authored the text “Process Synthesis” with Rudd and

Siirola, the first text in the area. Gary made seminal contributions to

I n M e M o r I A M —

Gary J. PowersSeptember 18, 1945 – July 23, 2007

safety analysis. He developed new meth-

ods for generating fault trees for quanti-

tative risk assessment, and successfully

applied them in industry as vice president

and co-founder of Design Sciences, Inc.

a risk-assessment company, established

in 1977. Gary also developed models

for the design of high integrity operating

procedures, and novel approaches for

verification of real-time control systems.

For his contributions in the safety area,

Gary Powers received the 2005 AIChE

Norton H. Walton/Russell L. Miller Award

in Safety/Loss Prevention.

Gary’s smiling face and warm heart was

uniformly loved and appreciated by stu-

dents and colleagues alike. He will be

sorely missed. In his memory an under-

graduate scholarship will be established.

Donations may be sent for the Gary J.

Powers Scholarship Fund, c/o Toni

McIltrot, Department of Chemical Engi-

neering, Carnegie Mellon University,

Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

See below for information on the “Gary

Powers Chemical Engineering Under-

graduate Scholarship.”

T r i b u T e t o g a r y p o w e r s

Professor Gary Powers was one of the most popular and well-liked professors in

the department of Chemical Engineering, and showed outstanding dedication to

teaching and to the students. In his memory and as a tribute to his dedication to

students the Department of Chemical Engineering has established in his memory

the “Gary Powers Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Scholarship.” This

scholarship, which reflects best the legacy of Professor Powers, will be offered

every year to an outstanding and deserving student in the course “Introduction to

Chemical Engineering,” which Gary Powers taught for many years. Our goal is to

raise $100,000 in order to establish this endowed scholarship fund. We trust that

many of our alumni will respond generously with a donation. (See Insert Card)

Donations may be sent for the Gary J. Powers Scholarship Fund, c/o Toni Mciltrot,

Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

15213

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r e n o v a T i o n o f D o h e r T y h a l l U p D a t eThe Doherty Hall renovation is now in full swing. This is a $27M project that will bring the building infrastructure up to the standards of modern building codes. This includes providing disabled access to the entire building, improv-ing safety infrastructure, creating large new research labs and upgrading the remainder of the building. The construction phase of the project began in January 2007 and we expect the work to continue through to the end of next summer.

At this point in time, the labs on the top three floors of the north wing have been gutted and are being outfitted to house the Solid State Materials groups on the first floor, the Bioengineering groups on the second floor and the Complex Fluids Engineering groups on the third floor. The steel work on the north face of the lab wing has been erected and the structure beneath the B-level terrace has been built to accommodate all the mechanical infra-structure of the building. Over the course of the summer the departmental offices on the first floor of the north wing have been refurbished and brought up to the standards of current building code. Having spent the summer dispersed throughout the building we moved back in last week. Over the course of the coming semester the Solid State Materials, Bioengineering and Complex Fluids Engineering labs will be completed and we will move experimental research groups operations into those in order to free space on the A and B levels and throughout the remainder of the building. That space and a new suite of offices on the third and fourth floors will be renovated for the Process Systems Engineering group during the spring and summer of 2008.

The main element of our strategic plan for development of these new labora-tory and research office spaces is to develop them in a way that facilitates collaboration between groups while also allowing for flexible reassignment of space as needs evolve. To this end, we have developed laboratories that are very much open spaces, in which a number of research groups can work side-by-side. While allowing access of students to a broader range of instru-mentation than in the past we expect that this will also improve safety as students are much less likely to be working alone in a lab. Another significant consideration has been the opportunity to move students’ work desks out of the lab areas so that they have a safe and quiet environment in which to read and write. The creation of open labs that are no longer assigned to individual faculty members will also allow the department to reassign space to new activities as research projects come and go and thus greatly improve the efficiency of space use.

Needless to say the building will be extremely chaotic for the coming year as we move people in and out of labs. None-theless, seeing the process of renovation and construction in progress is quite remarkable. If you happen to be visiting Carnegie Mellon or Pittsburgh over the next year, please feel free to stop in for a visit. In any event we will certainly hold a grand opening once the project is complete and everyone will be invited.

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Professor nIck sAhInIDIs has accepted a position as the Swearingen Chair of Chemical Engi- neering. Nick is a 1991 Ph.D. alumnus of the department having worked with Professor Ignacio Grossmann. After leaving Carnegie Mellon, he joined the University of Illinois where he reached the rank of Professor of Chemical Engineering. He and his family moved to Pittsburgh in July and he officially joined the department on August 1.

Professor Sahinidis’ research program is in the field of optimization and its applications to problems in biology, chemistry, engineering, and medicine. His research advances the mathemati-cal foundations of optimization while providing comprehensive and rigorous solutions to important and fundamental problems that involve biological, chemi-cal, and engineering systems.

Motivated by problems in process and molecular design and analysis, Profes-sor Sahinidis began the development of global optimization algorithms and the BARON software in 1991. Over the past five years, BARON has enabled scien-tists and engineers to study problems in fields including computational chem-istry, numerical analysis, energy policy, operations management, engineering design, and systems biology.

In addition to making fundamental contributions to computational optimi-zation, Professor Sahinidis has been solving important problems in X-ray crystallographic computing, bioinfor-matics, medical decision making, and the design of novel molecules that are environmentally benign. His research has been funded by the National Sci-ence Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and several chemical companies.

Professor Sahinidis comes to Carnegie Mellon after a sixteen-year long career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught and con-ducted research in Operations Research and Chemical Engineering. His work at the molecular level (X-ray imaging, bioinformatics, and molecular design) complements the Process Systems Engineering research group’s activities, the majority of which has focused at the process level.

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Professor nIck sAhInIDIs and his former student Mohit Tawarmalani, who is now on the faculty at Purdue University, won the 2006 Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize for Excellence in Computational Mathematical Programming from the Mathematical Programming Society. The Prize is awarded once every three years for the best publication in computational optimization that has appeared any-where in the open literature during the intervening period. The 2006 Prize was awarded to Sahinidis and Tawarmalani for their paper “A polyhedral branch-and-cut approach to global optimization,” pub-lished in Mathematical Programming, Series B, in 2005. According to the award citation, “The approaches described in this paper are implemented in the BARON software system … a powerful ap-proach to the global optimization of nonlinear optimization problems … a very difficult area.”

Professor nIck sAhInIDIs gave an invited talk at the Fields Institute in Toronto in May 2007 as part of the Workshop on Global Optimization. He also gave an invited tutorial on Global Optimization at the INFORMS Conference on O.R. Practice that took place in Vancouver, Canada, in May 2007.

Professor nIck sAhInIDIs was appointed to the editorial board of Optimization Methods and Software. He will continue to serve on seven additional editorial boards, including those of the Journal of Global Optimization, Optimization and Engineering, and Optimization Letters.

Professor MohAMMAD IslAM has received both the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship Award and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) most prestigious award for new faculty members, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award in 2007. The Alfred P. Sloan Fellowships are awarded annu-ally. These awards are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members

in specified fields of science. The NSF CAREER Award recognizes a young researcher’s dual commitment to scholarship and education. Professor Islam will use his award to investigate phase transitions and organization in crystals and alloys using colloidal particles.

Professor AnDy GellMAn has lead a team of 24 faculty members from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pitts-burgh, and West Virginia University in the successful development of a proposal to create an energy research institute in partnership with

the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory. Chemical Engineering par-ticipants include Profes-

sors AnDy GellMAn,

DAvID sholl, John

kItchIn and lArry

BIeGler. This effort has yielded $17M in research funding over the next two years to support research

projects on a wide range of energy related topics including: catalysis, materi-als, carbon management, process modeling, gas hydrates, sensors, sensor diagnostics, turbine design, fuel cells and other energy technologies.

This year Professor BoB tIlton is serving as Chair-Elect of the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry. He will become Division Chair in January, 2008. He also

completed his term as Chair of the ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium Committee, a position he has held since 2003.

Professor BoB tIlton was an invited speaker at a symposium titled “How to Look at Protein Adsorption: A Practical Approach,” held at the University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Copenhagen,

Denmark, May 31 – June 1, 2007. The symposium was sponsored by the Drug Research Academy and the Danish Pharmaceutical Society.

Professor BoB tIlton was instructor for a short course on “Dynamic Aspects of Colloid and Surface Chemistry” at the Institute for Surface Chemistry, Stockholm, Sweden, April 23 – 24, 2007.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $1.075M Nano-scale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) grant to Professor

BoB tIlton (Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering), Greg Lowry (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Kris Matyjasze-wski (Chemistry) and Ned Minkley (Biological Sciences). The team is developing a system of block copolymer-functionalized reactive nanoparticles to provide efficient source-zone remediation of aqui-fers that have been polluted by industrial solvents. The proposed technology is intended to replace or augment current cleanup tech-nologies that are estimated to require a century or even more to re-mediate individual sites. The key to the new strategy is to decorate reactive nanoparticles with polymers that promote their transport through the aquifer and accumulation in the underground contami-nant zones. This study will include an investigation of nanoparticle impacts on naturally occurring aquifer microbial communities. The nanoparticle delivery system will be engineered to minimize any po-tentially damaging microbiological effects and to promote synergistic interactions between the nanoparticle-based remediation chemistry and natural biological processes that may naturally degrade solvent contaminants.

A paper by Yueqiang Liu, Sara A. Majetich, roBert D. tIlton,

DAvID s. sholl , and Gregory V. Lowry (“TCE Dechlorination Rates, Pathways, and Efficiency of Nanoscale Iron Particles with Different Properties” Environ. Sci. Technol. 39(5) (2005) 1338–1345) was the 15th most cited article published in Environmental Science and Technology in 2005. This paper resulted from a DOE- and EPA-

Andy Gellman

John Kitchin

David Sholl

Larry Biegler

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supported collaboration between Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemistry and Physics faculty to de-velop surface modifiers that enhance the utility of iron nanoparticles for in situ remediation of groundwater contaminated by chlorinated organic solvents. The work is continuing with an NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) grant.

A paper by suDhAkAr AlAPAtI, J. Karl Johnson, and DAvID s. sholl (“Using first principles calculations to identify new desta-bilized metal hydride reactions for reversible storage”, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 9 (2007) 1438) was highlighted as an “Editor’s Choice” in the March 23 edition of Science. This paper was also the most accessed paper in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics in March.

Professors John kItchIn and JIM

MIller are President and President-Elect of the Pittsburgh-Cleveland Catalysis Society, respectively.

Professor JIM MIller is currently Chair of the Pittsburgh Section of the AIChE

Professor DennIs PrIeve was chosen to receive the 2007 Lectureship Award by the Chemical Society of Japan (Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry). The award consists of a stipend to support travel to and within Japan to give an invited talk at the annual meeting, held in September, and several seminars.

Professor DennIs PrIeve was elected President-Elect of the International Association of Colloid and Interface Scientists (IACIS). He will become President in 2009. IACIS is a scien-tific organization, centered in The Netherlands,

whose main activity is to organize a tri-annual meeting. The last meeting was held in Iguassu Falls (Brazil) in 2003. The next meeting is in October in Beijing.

Professor lArry BIeGler has been selected recipient of the 2007 CACHE Award for Excellence in Computing in Chemical Engi-neering Education. This award, sponsored by the CACHE Corpora-tion, is presented for significant contributions in the development of computer aids for chemical engineering education. Larry was recog-nized for leadership in the development of strategies and methods for process optimization, particularly for the pioneering implementa-tion of the successive quadratic programming (SQP) method in the process simulator FLOWTRAN that has allowed many students to optimize process flowsheets. The award consists of a plaque and a $1,000 honorarium presented at the Chemical Engineering Division awards banquet held at the ASEE Annual Conference, June 24–27, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Professor lArry BIeGler spent the Fall 2006 semester as a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute of Scientific Computing at the University of Heidelberg. His mini-sabbatical included plenary talks at conferences in France and Hungary as well as a short course at the Technical University of Ilmenau.

Professor IGnAcIo GrossMAnn was elected as the next chair of the Chemical En-gineering section of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also running as a candidate for Director of AIChE in this year’s elections.

Professor erIk yDstIe spent a week doing volunteer work in Burkina Faso, West Africa. He taught English, computers, and internet to students at Ouagadougou University.

Professor erIk yDstIe received the 2007 CAST Division’s Computing in Chemical En-gineering Award. This award is sponsored by the Dow Chemical Company and recognizes outstanding contributions in the application of computing and systems technology to chemical engineering.

Professor sPyros PAnDIs, together with John Seinfeld (Caltech) published the 2nd edition

of their textbook, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Global Change (Wiley).

John D. sIIrolA (Ph.D. 2005) and his advisors Professor

Arthur W. WesterBerG and Professor steInAr hAuAn have received the “Best Paper 2005” award in the journal Computers & Chemical Engineering (CCE) for their paper entitled “Computing Pareto Fronts using Distributed Agents” (Computers & Chemical Engineering, 29(1), (2004), 113-126).

Professor lee WhIte has been awarded the 2008 Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division award of the American Chemical Society. He will receive this award at a black tie banquet held at the Spring meeting of the ACS to be held in New Orleans.

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Dennis Prieve

Jim Miller

Ignacio Grossman

Erik Ydstie

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D e p a r T M e n T n e w s

On November 5-7, 2006, the ChemE department’s undergraduate curriculum underwent ABET review by Dr. ed rosen (Monsanto, retired) and Dr. frank Zhu (UOP). Professor lynn Walker did an excellent job organizing the documentation for the review. The ABET evaluators were very impressed with our programs and with our methodology, continuous improvement and self-monitoring. The department passed with flying colors and will retain its accreditation for the next six years.

Bayer fellowship in chemical engineering and chemistry. The Bayer Corporation has awarded the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry $725,000 over a five year period beginning in the spring of 2008 to fund three graduate fellowships in Chemistry and in Chemical Engineering. This grant continues the very successful Bayer graduate fellowship program initiated in 2002.

The 2006 herbert l. toor chemical Industry lectureship was held on September 5, 2006. The speaker was Dr. William F. Banholzer, Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of The Dow Chemical Company. The title of his presentation was “Personal Experience in the Application of Chemical Engineering, and Selected Research Topics at Dow.”

Bayer lecture in Process systems engineering. Professor Chris Floudas from Princeton University delivered this lecture on Tuesday, March 20. The title of his lecture was, “Advances and Challenges in De Novo Protein Design.”

From November 10 through November 13, 2006, the chemical car team associated with the local student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) competed against 29 other schools from across the country at the AIche national conference in San Francisco, Calif. This was the first time Carnegie Mellon competed at this event in its seven year history.

Although the team did not place in the competition, they put forth a great effort in their first year and look forward to competing again in the spring. The team consists of seven undergraduates: juniors Melissa Bartel, Carlene Ulish, and Denver Faulk, sophomores Rogaite Shafi, Youn Duk Nam, and Sudarsan Ven-katachalam and senior Justin Forbes. They are advised by chemical engineer-ing Ph.D. student Jeff Pierce, and faculty member Professor Jim schneider.

The contest requires that every team have a car which is powered by a chemi-cal reaction. Many teams use fuel cells, chemical batteries or a gas producing reaction which drives a piston. The car must run on its own power and stop at a distance that is specified on the day of the competition and is between 50 to 100 feet. The team stopping closest to the specified distance wins the com-petition. Cars are not allowed to use mechanical breaking mechanisms, adding to the challenge of stopping at the specified distance. An additional challenge in the competition is that the cars must carry a load of water, also specified on the day of the competition, which is between 0 and 500 mL. In addition to the

“race,” a poster competition is held in the morning of the competition, with prizes being awarded for creativity and a “fan favorite.”

In order to have qualified for the national competition, the team had to qualify at the regional competition which was held at Penn State, last spring. Completely taking the field by surprise, the Carnegie Mellon team landed 1 inch from the distance required and took first place!

Due to several safety issues encountered in previous competitions, several new design con-straints were announced between the regional competitions and the national meeting. These constraints forced the Carnegie Mellon team to redesign parts of their car, which led to a less accurate performance at the national competition. The team now looks to improve the current car and future cars based on what they learned from the competition.

For more information on the AIChE local chapter, or the ChemE car team, go to http://aiche.cheme.cmu.edu. For national ChemE car news, you can check out the website http://www.aiche.org/Students/Conferences/chemecar.aspx.

Above: Prof. Jim Scheider

From left to right: Denver

Faulk, Melissa Bartel,

Sudarsan Venkatachalam,

Jeff Pierce, Carlene Ulish,

Rogaite Shafi, Justin Forbes

chemical car competition

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Lynn Walker

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c e n t e r f o r a d v a n c e d p r o c e s s D e c i s i o n - m a k i n g

s T a f f n e w s

sarah Paez was the recipient of

the 2007 Staff Rookie Award in

January. This award is presented

by the College of Engineering to

a staff member who makes vital

contributions to the college and the

department. Sarah’s dedication,

professionalism and enthusiasm as

Graduate Admissions Coordinator

and her willingness to contribute to

the chemical engineering department

in general were highlighted as some

of the many reasons why she was so

deserving of this recognition.

The Center for Advanced Process Decision-making (CAPD) under the direction of Ignacio Grossmann and participation of larry Biegler and erik ydstie continues to foster strong links with industry. Pfizer recently joined the CAPD with which the total number of members is twenty-two: ABB, Air Products, Aspen Technology, Bayer, BP, Cargill, NETL, Dash Optimization, Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, ExxonMobil, GAMS Corporation, Honeywell, Kraft, Neste Engineering Oy, NOVA Chemicals, Paragon Decision Technology, PETROBRAS, Pfizer, PPG, Simsci-Esscor, and Total. The annual meeting took place on March 12–13 with the participation of 35 representatives from industry. The meeting was followed by the special interest group on Enterprise-wide Optimization, a multidisciplinary effort funded by PITA and ICES, and with participation of ABB, Air Products, BP, Dow, ExxonMobil and NOVA Chemicals. See: http://capd.cheme.cmu.edu

The CAPD Short Course, “conceptual Design, optimization, and Process operations” was offered from June 6 to June 12, 2007, in the department. Professors Biegler, Grossmann, and Hauan taught the course which is organized in three modules: Conceptual Design (6-6/6-7), Optimization (6-8/6-9), Operations (6-11/6-12). For more information, see the Web site: http://capd.cheme.cmu.edu/short-course_details.htm.

enterprise-wide optimization

The project “Computational Models and Algorithms for Enterprise-wide Optimization of Process Industries,” which is being funded by the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA), has continued with the participation of ABB, Air Products, BP, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil and NOVA Chemicals. The last meeting took place right after the CAPD Meeting on March 13-14, 2007.

Ignacio e. Grossmann, and his students ramkumar karuppiah, Andreas Peschel and Mariano Martin, in collaboration with Cargill and with funding from the NSF, have used process synthesis methods combined with mathematical programming techniques to reduce the steam consumption of corn-based bio-ethanol plants by more than 60 percent. The key involves the use of multi-effect distillation together with a heat recovery network. The design reduces the manufactur-ing cost for producing ethanol by 11 percent, from $1.61 a gallon to $1.43. See also: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/January/jan26_ethanol.shtml

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CIT Dean, Pradeep Khosla presents

Sarah Paez with the 2007 Staff

Rookie Award.

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c a p D n e w sc o l l o i d s , p o l y m e r s a n d s u r f a c e s

c p s n e w s

new Graduate level laboratory course offered: cPs lab III Advanced characterization Methods. A new graduate lab course, CPS Lab III developed by Dr. Susana Steppan, Dr. Annette Jacobson and a number of CFE faculty was offered for the first time in the Spring 2007 semester. In this course, students learn tech-niques for the characterization of fine particles, macromolecules and interfaces relevant to complex fluids engineering (CFE). Experiments are based on methods currently used in CFE research and include microelectrophoresis, rheology, dynamic surface tension using the bubble pressure method, contact angle hysteresis measurement, surface excess concentration measurement using ellipsometry,

measurement of zeta potential of solid surfaces, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and particle sizing by dynamic light scattering. CFE faculty providing expertise includes Professors Jim schneider, lynn Walker, Bob tilton, Paul sides and steve Garoff. A special experiment was offered using the Dual Polarization Interferometer (DPI), sponsored by Farfield Scientific, Inc.

Bring your son or Daughter to Work Day, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon, was on April 26, 2007. The CPS Program participated in Bring Your Child to Work Day on campus by providing two hands-on workshops about Macromol-ecules and Products to 24 participants. Topics included polymer gels, films and reactions used in products from the food and toy industries. The sessions were conducted by rose frollini, susana steppan and Annette Jacobson.

national engineers Week at the carnegie science center

The Chemical Engineering Department participated in National Engineers’ Week at the Carnegie Science Center on February 16–17, 2007. Activities highlighted applications of polymer products to

include making Shrinky Dink® polymers and molecular tattoos made from polymer films. Approximately 400 students visited our exhibit.

A sincere thank you to the following volunteers for making our participation a great success: Gary Powers, libby Powers, Jeff Pierce, rose frollini, susana steppan, Joanna James, sudhakar Alapati, haibin chen, larry hayhurst, Marcia hayhurst, Jen summerhill, katie summerhill, Greg Drozd, theresa lafollette and Annette Jacobson.

national chemistry Week at the carnegie science center

The CPS Program and the Department of Chemical Engineering once again participated in the celebration of National Chemistry Week at the Carnegie Science Center. Sponsored by the American Chemical Society, this year’s theme was “Your Home – It’s all built on Chemistry.” Two activities were offered. The first focused on various types of coatings used on interior and exterior walls of the home. Participants examined paint formulations and looked at their uses, including blackboard paint, ceiling paint, magnetic paint, graf-fiti-resistant coatings and E-Z clean paints. Then they were able to try out a magnet or some chalk, clean graffiti off a painted surface and watch ceiling paint dry. In the second activity, participants used a hand-held light sensor to measure irradiance, the power per unit area, of different styles of light bulbs commonly found in the home. By comparing light output, they were able to find out “just how bright is that light.” Thanks to all who volunteered their help includ-ing: Dr. Gary Powers, libby Powers, rosemary frollini, Dr. susana steppan, Dr. Annette Jacobson, Alice yochum, Jeff Pierce, Abby laurent and Jeff savard.

WePAn national conference

rosemary frollini and Annette Jacobson presented a workshop at the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN) 2006 National Conference, which was held in Pittsburgh, June 11-14 2006. The title of their presentation was “Chemical Engineering and Cosmetics: Making the Connection between Chemistry and Engineering in Product Manufacturing.”

The workshop provided an activity for middle school and high school educators and those involved in outreach projects to assist them in promoting engineering and science careers to youth. It also provided an opportunity to bring industrial technology into the class-room using cosmetic and personal care products as a focus.

Workshop participants explored the processes involved in the manufacture of soap, manufactured their own personal care product and used process symbols for chemical engineering unit operations to produce a process flow sheet. Ingredient function and product formulations as well as product testing was also discussed. Partici-pants developed an awareness of the part played by the engineer and scientist in the formulation and processing of products that they use every day. National Engineers’ Week at the Carnegie Science Center: Carnegie Mellon

Chemical Engineering Booth. From left: Susana Steppan, Rose Frollini and

Theresa LaFollette

Paul Sides

Annette Jacobson

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American chemical society (Acs) - educational Division lecture

Dr. Annette Jacobson was invited to give a presentation for the local ACS High School Enrichment Program on November 11, 2006. The topic was “Polymers in Food and Toys.” Meeting on Saturdays and sponsored by the educational division of ACS, this program draws Pittsburgh Area high school students who have a special interest in Organic Chemistry. Students performed experiments in the Rothfus lab and were given a tour of the undergraduate Chemical Engineering laboratories.

sWe high school Day

Dr. Annette Jacobson and Dr. susana steppan presented a program for 60 high school students on October 20, 2006. The program was coordinated by the Carnegie Mellon Student Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers to promote careers in engi- neering and science. Thanks to the following students from the department who volunteered their assistance: Joanna James, vishnu chapalamadugu, Jeff Pierce and kristina Wagstrom.

robert Morris university lecture

rosemary frollini and Dr. Annette Jacobson were invited to give a lecture-demonstration on October 25 to undergraduate engineering science students at Robert Morris University. The topic

was “Macromolecular Products” and illustrated the extensive use of polymers in consumer products.

ethel Z. casassa Memorial lecture

The inaugural Ethel Z. Casassa Memorial Lecture in Colloids, Polymers and Surfaces (CPS) took place on September 19, 2006. T. Kyle Vanderlick, Department Chair of Chemical Engineering at Princeton University, presented a lecture titled “Marring, Merging, and Manipulating Lipid Membranes.” The Casassa lecture recog-nizes excellence in academic research and honors the memory of Dr. Ethel Casassa, the first female tenure track professor in the department, and founder of the CPS Laboratories and under- graduate program in Colloids, Polymers and Surfaces (CPS). Two members of the Casassa family, Professor Edward Casassa and Dr. Michael Casassa attended the lecture.

Moving 4th into engineering

Annette Jacobson provided an experimental workshop on “Polymers and Consumer Products” to 30 4th grade students in the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES)—sponsored the Moving 4th Grade into Engineering Program. The program was held on April 28, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon.

Ethel Casassa Lecture:

From Left: Lynn Walker, David

Sholl, Michael Casassa, Kyle

Vanderlick, Edward Casassa,

Annette Jacobson and Bob Tilton.

c p s n e w s c o n t .

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The Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Open House was held the weekend of March 9–11, 2007. This year 21 students visited the Department. We thank all the graduate students for their help in re-cruiting the new students, and we are happy to report 12 new Ph.D. students and 12 Master’s will be joining us in the Fall of 2008.

cheGsA offIcersPresident: Gabriella EngelhartTreasurer: Theresa LafolletteFundraising Officer: Sheetal Pai Symposium Chairs: Trishna Saigal, Sarthak Jain, Lea HildebrandtSymposium (website): Gaurav BansalWebmasters: Sal Farina, Jeff PierceSocial Chairs: Teresa Kirschling, Nick Alvarez, Michael WartmannAdam MalacinaGSA Representatives: Deepika Priyadarshini, Marianne MotaDanish Faruqui

chesGA symposium 2006

The 2006 ChEGSA Symposium was held on October 5–6 with Keynote Speaker Carol K. Hall, Alcoa Professor of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. The title of her talk was “Computer Simulation of Protein Aggregation.”

cheGsA symposium: october 15 – 16, 2007

Dr. James G. Anderson from Harvard University will give the keynote address. The title of his address will be “Global Feedbacks and Irre-versibility in the Climate System: A Union of Science and Engineer-ing.” See http://symposium.cheme.cmu.edu/107/index.html for more information or to register to attend this year.

g r a D u a T e s T u D e n T n e w s

Congratulations to our new AIChE student chapter board for the 2007-2008 school year!

President: Melissa BartelVice President: Natasha SachdevaTreasurer: Denver FaulkSecretary: Anna LukasiakSocial Chair: Alexa BeaverUniversity Liaison: Alok KhetanIndustrial Liaison: Paras DoshiLecture Chair: Kushal DoshiWebmaster: Jason TchaoFinancial Board Member: Carlene Ulish

AIChE’s Pittsburgh Chapter, with Jim Miller as the organization’s Vice-Chair and meeting organizer, held its annual Students’ Night and Awards Banquet on February 26 at Carnegie Mellon’s University Center. An outstanding senior from each of the regional Chemical Engineering undergrad programs, including Carnegie Mellon’s Maureen tang, were recognized by the chapter as Profes-sional Promise Awardees. Student’s night also featured poster displays of undergraduate research projects, including a submission by Carnegie Mellon’s Aileen Dinnin.

At the luncheon at the Carnegie Museum, are Professor Carol Hall

(3rd from left) with CHEGSA Officers

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PlAceMent stAtIstIcs

Placement statistics for the 2007 senior class were as follows:

The average starting salary was $62,000. The high was $82,000 and the low $40,000.

Members of the class of 2007 went to the following employers and graduate schools:

Arkema Arrow International (2)Automation Control Specialists (2)Bank of America Cargill Juice Conoco Phillips DC Energy Exxon Mobil (6)Lockheed Martin Merck (2)Microstrategy Mittal Steel USA NOVA Chemicals Pella Petronas Carigali Malaysia Procter & Gamble (2)Schlumberger (3)Sunoco U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

Graduate schools – class of 2007

Carnegie Mellon University Johns Hopkins University Lake Erie College Osteopathic Medicine MIT Robert Wood Johnson Medical School St. George’s University University of California-Berkeley (2)University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

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Carnegie Mellon’s 110th commencement took place at 11 a.m. on

Sunday, May 20 in Gesling Stadium. The commencement address was

given by actor and comedian Bill Cosby. The Chemical Engineering

department ceremony began immediately following the university

ceremony at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in the Carnegie Museum. After

the ceremony a special reception was held in the Hall of Architecture

for graduates and their guests.

Commencement 2007

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The Mark Dennis karl outstanding teaching Assistant Award recipient is Jitkang Lim.

The Mccabe society inductees are: Aileen Dinin, Justin Forbes, Deborah Harris, Christopher Klifto, Marita Mann, Caitlin Weigand.

Maureen Tang was presented the AIche Professional Promise Award by the Pittsburgh section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers for outstanding achievements and potential for future success as a chemical engineer.

Zachary Martin is this year’s recipient of the ken Westerberg Award for undergraduate research.

The Parfitt Prize is given for Excellence in Chemical Engineering Research by a graduating senior. This year, two students received the Geoffrey Parfitt Award for excellence in research: Michael Nigra and Jennifer Njoroge.

Jennifer Njoroge was recognized for the Judith A. resnik Award Honorable Mention category in the university-wide competition for the Resnik Award

2007 Graduation Awards

Department head Andy Gellman and Aileen Dinin

Justin Forbes

Deborah Harris Christopher Klifto

Marita Mann

Caitlin Weigand

Maureen Tang

Left to right:Zachary MartinMichael NigraJennifer Njoroge

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karl B. schnelle Jr, (B.S.,52; M.S.,57; Ph.D.59) Professor

of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering at

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., was presented the 2006

Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award from the Air

& Waste Management Association by Peter Hess, President,

AWMA.

According to the association’s magazine, EM, the award

recognizes inspirational teaching and “recognizes the ability

that only a few educators possess: to teach with rigor, humor,

humility and pride. Recipients are educators we would have

chosen as our teachers if we had a choice.” Schnelle received

the award on June 22, 2006 at the Annual Meeting of the Air

and Waste Management Association in New Orleans.”

a l u M n i n e w s

2007 Graduation Awards cont.

Sudhakar Alapati is the winner of the ken Meyer Prize that is presented every year to a senior doctoral student who has dem-onstrated excellence in graduate research in chemical engineering. The faculty base their selection of the student on research quality, productivity, recognition, and impact.

Kristen Henry is the 2007 recipient of the American Institute of chemists foundation Award which is granted on the basis of ability, character, scholastic achievement, and professional potential.

Professor Ignacio Grossmann is the recipient of the kun li Award which is given to the faculty member who has the greatest impact on the graduating class and is selected on the basis of the seniors’ comments.

Sudhakar Alapati

Kristen Henry

Ignacio Grossmann

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Adsorption of Hydrophobi-cally Modified DNA to Micelles, Liposomes, and Microemulsions: Shane T. Grosser, Jeff Savard and James W. Schneider.

Electrical Charges in the Non-Aqueous Solution: Rong Fu and Dennis Prieve.

The Impact of Fluid Behavior on the Wedge-Flow near Moving Contact Lines: Gita Seevaratnam, Stephen Garoff, Enrique Rame and Lynn M. Walker.

Electroosmotic Mixing inside Polyacrylamide Gels Via Immobi-lized Silica Nanoparticles: Marvi A. Matos, Lee R. White and Robert D. Tilton.

Chiral Adsorption on Cu Surfaces: David S. Sholl, Rees B. Rankin, Bhawna Bhatia and Joanna James.

Small Pore Zeolites as Materials for Gas Separation Membranes: David S. Sholl, David A. Newsome, Sang-eun` Jee and Haibin Chen.

The Automated Generation of Constrained Models from Feasibility Analysis for Reactive Distillation: Scott L. Turnberg and Steinar Hauan.

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Nano-Scale Lubricant Films in Humidity: Haigang Chen, Qian Guo and Myung S. Jhon.

The Application and Modeling of Nano-Structured Polymeric Liquid Films in Head-Disk Inter-face: Haigang Chen, Qian Guo and Myung S. Jhon.

Inorganic and Organic Nanopar-ticle Arrays Templated in Ther-moreversible Block Copolymer Hydrogels: Danilo C Pozzo and Lynn M. Walker.

Probability of the Growth of Ultrafine Atmospheric Aerosol to Cloud Condensation Nuclei: Jeffrey R. Pierce and Peter J. Adams.

Interior-Point Decomposition Ap-proaches for Parallel Solution of Large-Scale Nonlinear Parameter Estimation Problems: Carl D. Laird, Victor M. Zavala and Lorenz T. Biegler.

the following papers were presented by our faculty and graduate students at the AIche annual meeting in san francisco, calif. on november 12-17, 2006.

a n n U a l a i c h e M e e T i n g

A Theoretical and Computational Comparison between Gdp Cuts, Disjunctive Cuts and Lift-and Project Cuts for Linear General-ized Disjunctive Programming: Nicolas W. Sawaya and Ignacio E. Grossmann.

Modeling of Purchase and Sales Contracts in Supply Chain Opti-mization: Minhwan Park, Fernando D. Mele, Sunwon Park and Ignacio E. Grossmann.

Mpec Formulations to Model Complementarities in Rto Prob-lems: Brian T. Baumrucker and Lorenz T. Biegler.

Optimal Control of Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes: Eduardo J. Dozal-Me-jorada and B. Erik Ydstie.

A Multidisciplinary Cyberinfra-structure Approach: Ignacio E. Grossmann.

Complex Supply Chain Networks: Kendell R. Jillson and B. Erik Ydstie.

Optimal Integration of Planning and Scheduling for Parallel Multi-Product Batch Reactors: Muge Erdirik Dogan, Ignacio E. Gross-mann and John Wassick.

Optimal Scheduling of Multistage Batch Plants with Sequence Dependent Changeovers: A Comparative Study: Pedro Castro, Ignacio E. Grossmann and Augusto Q. Novais.

Scale-up and Control of Fluidized Bed Production of Solar-Grade Silicon: Christy M. White, and B. Erik Ydstie.

A Fast and Efficient Computa-tional Framework for Large-Scale Nonlinear Model Predictive Con-trol: Victor M. Zavala and Lorenz T. Biegler.

A Multistage Stochastic Minlp Model for Exploration and Plan-ning of Petroleum Fields under Uncertainty: Bora Tarhan and Ignacio E. Grossmann.

Optimal Design and Layout of an Immunoassay on a Chip: Xiang He and Steinar Hauan.

A Superstructure Optimiza-tion Approach for the Design of Corn-Based Ethanol Plants: Andreas Peschel, Ramkumar Karup-piah, Mariano Martín, Ignacio E. Grossmann, Luca Zullo and Wade Martinson.

Numerical Optimization of a Bio-chemical Sensor Array: Jane E. Valentine, Todd M. Przybycien and Steinar Hauan.

Chiral Surfaces and Enantiose-lectivity: Andrew J. Gellman, Ye Huang, Joshua D. Horvath and Anjannette Koritnik.

Coverage Dependent Adsorption Energies of Oxygen on Ag-Pd Alloy Surfaces: John Kitchin.

The Viscoelastic Behavior of Perfluoropolyether Lubricant Via Molecular Dynamics: Qian Guo1, Satoru Izumisawa2, Haigang Chen1, and Myung S. Jhon1. (1) Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, (2) Mitsubi-shi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc., Yokohama, Japan

Electrolyte Dependent Aggre-gation or Separation of Micron Sized Particles in Low Frequency Ac-Electric Fields: James D. Hog-gard, Dennis Prieve and Paul Sides.

Surface Chemistry of Carbon Overcoats for Magnetic Data Storage. Yang Yun, Chemical Engi-neering Department and Andrew J. Gellman.

Isolation and Concentration of Biomarkers Using Self- Assembled Nanomaterials: James W. Schneider.

Integration of Multi-Scale Multi-Phenomena Simulations of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Via Lattice Boltzmann Methods: Pil Seung Chung, Haigang Chen and Myung S. Jhon.

sessIon chAIrs:

Novel Flows: Prof. Lynn Walker

Modeling of Inorganic Materi-als Synthesis and Properties: Prof. David Sholl

CAST Plenary Session: Prof. Lorenz Biegler

Design & Synthesis of Sensor Systems: Prof. Steinar Hauan

Cape-Open Numerical Com-ponents: Development and Usage. Prof. Lorenz Biegler

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Row 1: Robert Wong, Amanda Miskewicz, Caitlin Weigand, James Tsui, Katherine Thompson, Carmen Jones, Wendy Kho, Nathan Shedd, Kristen Schell, Rokhsana Safaai-Jazi, Samantha Rosenthal, Phillip LoweRow 2: Daqian Wu, Ray Wong, Marita Mann, Adam Edison, Nithya Rajendran, Aileen Dinin, Sabrina Dhanani, Deborah Harris, Serena Hanor, Sally Hayashi, Manav Kumar, Justin Forbes, Andrew ChuangRow 3: William Minton, William Nicoll, Michael Nigra, Farzad Pourarian, Maureen Tang, Christopher Klifto, Rhiannon Kolb, Hannuri Kwon, Eli LordanRow 4: Brea Carlock, Alex Chang, Corey Mays, Zachary Martin, Jennifer Njoroge, Derek Eguae-Obazee, Mary Catherine Fisher, Kristen Henry, Bosco HuiRow 5: Yuyan Chow, Sang Chung, Daron Colflesh, Niranjan Desai, Casey Sample, Mike Aliprando, Vincent ChouRow 6: Jing Chou, Vishnu Chapalamadugu, Jung Ho Jae, Priyesh Thakker, Alan Evankovich, Sooraj Nair, Alan Abel, Shivakumar Kameswaran, Row 7: John Kitchin, Annette Jacobson, David Sholl, Kris Dahl, Gary Powers, Todd Przybycien, Steinar Hauan, Jim Schneider, Sudhakar Alapati, Muge Erdirik Dogan, Juan Arrieta Camacho, Jessica Tucker, Michael Bartkovsky, Rong Fu, Sartaj Ghai, Shane Grosser, Xiang He, Kendell Jillson, Andrew Gellman, Neil Donahue, Lee White, Jim Miller, Michael Domach, Paul Sides, Ignacio Grossmann, Spyros Pandis

Department of chemical engineeringCarnegie Mellon University5000 Forbes AvenuePittsburgh, PA 15213-3890412-268-2230http://www.cheme.cmu.edu

First ClassU.S. PostagePAIDPittsburgh, PAPermit No. 251

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