F E AT U RE D RE S E AR C HFAC U LT Y RE S E AR C H F E AT U RE D O N J OU RNAL C O V E R S

PAG E 4

CHEMICAL ENGINEERINGNEWS

S U M M E R / FA L L 2 0 1 5

FA C U LT Y P R O F E S S O R S H I P W I N N E R S PA G E 5 W W W . C H E . U F L . E D U

L AT E ST N E WST H E D E PA RT M E N T W E L C O M E S N E W FAC U LT Y M E M B E R

PAG E 7C O V E R ST O RYT H E U N I T O P S L ABU N D E R G O E S M A J O RRE NO VAT I O N S

PAG E 1 0

2

The Gator ChemE family is growing! I am very pleased to

announce that Dr. David D. Hibbitts, will be joining the Chem-

ical Engineering Department starting Fall 2015. Dr. Hibbitts

received his PhD from the University of Virginia from the

group of Matt Neurock (now at Minnesota), and he recently

completed his postdoctoral appointment with Enrique Igle-

sia at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Hibbitts is

an expert in heterogeneous catalysis for reactions of fossil-

or biomass-based chemicals. The department continues to

build strong visibility in this important research area. We

are continuing our search for one Assistant Professor this

year, and will continue that search again next year.

Congratulations to Jennifer Curtis for receiving 2015 F. J. and

Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute!

This is an AIChE Board of Directors’ Award and one of the

most prestigious awards offered by AIChE; it recognizes

Jennifer’s numerous activities in professional leadership,

including service on the AIChE Board of Directors, the Exec-

utive Board of the Program Committee, and the Publications

Committee. She is currently Associate Editor of the AIChE

Journal, Co-Editor of Chemical Engineering Education, and

Past Chair of the Particle Technology Forum. Thank you,

Jennifer, for your tremendous service to the Chemical Engi-

neering profession and for bringing such great distinction

to the Department! I hope you can all attend the presen-

tation of this award, which will take place at the Honors

Ceremony, held during AIChE’s 2015 Annual Meeting in Salt

Lake City, Utah, on the evening of Sunday, November 8th.

I am also very pleased to announce the new recipients of

our endowed faculty positions! These include the Charles A.

Stokes Professor, Carlos Rinaldi; the Fred and Bonnie Edie

Professor, Fan Ren; the ExxonMobil Gator Chemical Engi-

neering Alumni Professor, Mark Orazem; and our newest

endowed position, the William and Tracy Cirioli Professor,

Jason Weaver. Congratulations to all of our new endowed

professors, and our sincere appreciation to the generous

alumni and friends of the department who made it possible

to honor our outstanding faculty in this meaningful way.

The next time you are in Gainesville, please allow us to

give you a tour of our newly refurbished unit operations

laboratory! A generous $500K donation has allowed us to

make substantial improvements to the lab, including a new

thin-film evaporator unit, a new control system for the

distillation columns, and several new benchtop modules.

The Lab Director, Dmitry Kopelevich assisted by Distin-

guished Professor Fan Ran and our lab technician, Jim

Hinnant, has done a wonderful job implementing these

improvements. Thanks to their hard work and leadership

and the support of our donors, the lab is in excellent physical

and financial health. As you know, the hands-on experi-

ence offered by the lab is critical training for our future

chemical engineers, and we are very happy to have one of

the few labs in the country with pilot scale equipment.

C H A I R ’ S M E S S A G E

To be added to our communications list or to send us your story, send an email to Monique Phears at mphears@che.ufl.edu.

Dr. Richard DickinsonD E P A R T M E N T C H A I R

We are planning another marquis event at the 2015

Annual AICHE Meeting in Salt Lake City. Please join us for a

dessert reception on Tuesday, November 10th at 8pm, at

the Trofi Restaurant on the first floor of the Hilton.

If you are attending the meeting or will be in the area,

please stop by and help us celebrate another successful

year for the department!

G R E E T I N G S F R O M G A I N E S V I L L E !

3

FACULT Y N EWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4AN D AWARDS

FACULT Y H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . . . . 7David Hibbitts, Assistant Professor

ALUM N I H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . . . . 8Alex Moreno, ‘83

UN IT OPS UP DATE . . . . . . . . . . . 10

STUDENT N EWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12ECS Student Chapter, Limbit lessSolutions

STUDENT H IGH LIGHT . . . . . . 14Undergraduate Aaron Thomas

STUDENT AWARDS . . . . . . . . . . 15

S U M M E R / F A L L 2 0 1 5

In response to a recent awareness of the

need for improved safety culture in uni-

versity laboratories, the Department of

Chemical Engineering has formed the

Chemical Engineering (CHE) Student

Safety Council (SSC). The membership

of the council comprises the Laboratory

Safety Managers from each research

group in the department. Other gradu-

ate students are also invited to join the

CHESSC. The goal of the CHESSC is to

improve the safety culture in the depart-

ment, making the research laboratories a

safer place to work. Their first action was

to create new safety training modules

that emphasize hazards that are specific

to chemical engineering laboratories.

Members of the CHESSC presented some

of their modules to incoming graduate

students during our first annual gradu-

ate student safety orientation in August.

Laboratory Safety Managers (Advisor)

Shihyun Ahn (Ren)

Samer Alam (Lele)

Mert Arca (Butler)

Husain Baaqel (Crisalle)

Ju Hee Choi (Weaver)

Phillip Dixon (Chauhan)

Arthur Dizon (Orazem)

Akshita Dutta (Vasenkov)

Dr. Samuel Gause(*) (Chauhan)

Hankook Kim (Anderson)

Pratik Kothary (Jiang)

Tian Lan (Tseng)

Sin-Yen Leo (Jiang)

Lorena Maldonado-Camargo (Rinaldi)

Sarah Mena (Curtis)

Anh Nguyen (Kopelevich)

Rahul Rai (Weaver)

Samantha Roberts (Hagelin-Weaver)

Kevin Ward (Narayanan)

Justin Wong (Ziegler)

Dr. Jun Yin(*) (Tseng)

Volunteer Members (Advisor)

Yogita A Deshpande (Hagelin-Weaver)

Evan Forman (Vasenkov)

Karishma Gupta (Chauhan)

Morgan Harding (Orazem)

Andreina Lam (Rinaldi)

Tao Li (Weaver)

Blayne Phillips (Jiang)

Chun-Chieng Wang (Narayanan)

Goutham Kotamreddy (Crisalle)

Chemical Engineering Student Safety Council

“

Dr. Cammy AbernathyD E A N O F E N G I N E E R I N G

Dr. Richard Dickinson D E P A R T M E N T C H A I R

Monique PhearsM A R K E T I N G C O O R D I N AT O R

O N T H E C O V E R

Photo: Unit Operation Lab’s Thin Film Evaporator; Students Tyler Burkett, James Fong, Thomas Goodall and Jacob Kerr

D E P A R T M E N T O FC H E M I C A LE N G I N E E R I N G (*) Recent Graduate

Faculty News & AwardsPENG JIANGS M A R T S H A P E M E M O R Y P O L Y M E R S P U B L I S H E D I N N A T U R E C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

Led by a Chemical Engineering graduate student Yin Fang, Prof. Jiang’s group has recently pioneered a new type of shape memory polymer that can be instantaneously triggered by applying an external pressure or by exposing to a large variety of vapors, such as acetone and toluene. The results have recently been published in Nature Communications (doi: 10.1038/ncomms8416) and Advanced Materials (doi: 10.1002/adma.201500835). Dr. Curtis Taylor from UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Dr. Vito Basile from National Council of Research, Italy are major collaborators of the work. DTRA, NASA, and NSF sponsored this discovery.

FAN RENR E S E A R C H A R T I C L E S M A K E “ T O P C I T E D ” L I S T S

The Editor in Chief of the Journals of Vacuum Science and Technology (JVST) A and B has just announced that two of Prof. Fan Ren’s research articles are both highly cited and have made the JVST A and JVST B top cited lists for 2014. An email blast was sent to thousands of people to recognize the highly cited articles. Additionally, Prof. Ren’s article in JVST B was selected as Editors’ Pick.

The cover of the latest issue of Soft Matter features research performed by doctoral candidate Mert Arca and Professors Butler and Ladd on the dynamics of DNA. The work examines the lateral migration of DNA during transport through a microfluidic channel by a combination of flow fields and electric fields. The results validate an improved model of DNA dynamics and indicate that the motion of DNA can be controlled for technological purposes using a very simple mechanism.

S E E L I N K S F O R T H E S E S T O R I E S A N D M O R E A T C H E . U F L . E D U

ChemCommChemical Communicationswww.rsc.org/chemcomm

ISSN 1359-7345

COMMUNICATIONSergey Vasenkov et al.Relationship between single-fi le diff usion of mixed and pure gases in dipeptide nanochannels by high fi eld diff usion NMR

Volume 51 Number 69 7 September 2015 Pages 13333–13422

SERGEY VASENKOV & KIRK ZIEGLER

N M R O B S E R V A T I O N O F S I N G L E - F I L E

D I F F U S I O N O F M I X T U R E S F E A T U R E D

O N T H E C O V E R O F C H E M I C A L

C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

The front cover of the last issue of Chemical Communications features high field diffusion NMR studies of single-file diffusion performed by PhD student Akshita Dutta under the advisement of Dr. Sergey Vasenkov and Dr. Kirk J Ziegler. Single-file diffusion (SFD) is the diffusion in narrow channels where

molecules cannot pass one another. Recent theoretical and computational studies suggest that induction of SFD conditions in nanoporous membranes and catalysts can lead to a dramatic enhancement of the performance of these systems in separations and catalysis, respectively. The featured communication opens up experimental studies of such performance enhancement by reporting first experimental evidence of SFD in a mixture of different types of diffusing species. This work was performed in collaboration with the group of Dr. Russ Bowers, Chemistry Department, UF.

JASON BUTLER & TONY LADD

R E S E A R C H F E A T U R E D O N T H E

C O V E R O F S O F T M A T T E R

4

FA C U LT Y N E W S & AWA R D S

Carlos RinaldiP R O F E S S O R

Fan RenD I S T I N G U I S H E D P R O F E S S O R

P ROFESSORSH I PS

Mark OrazemD I S T I N G U I S H E D P R O F E S S O R

S E E L I N K S F O R T H E S E S T O R I E S A N D M O R E A T C H E . U F L . E D U

SERGEY VASENKOV & KIRK ZIEGLER

N M R O B S E R V A T I O N O F S I N G L E - F I L E

D I F F U S I O N O F M I X T U R E S F E A T U R E D

O N T H E C O V E R O F C H E M I C A L

C O M M U N I C A T I O N S

3

1

4

2

Mark Orazem is awarded the ExxonMobil Gator Chemical Engi-neering Alumni Professorship. Professor Orazem is an expert in impedance spectroscopy for electrochemical engineering appli-cations and his research ranges from fundamental to applied. He has recently been appointed Adjunct Professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. He has received nearly 3000 citations in the last five years which includes a text on Electro-chemical Impedance Spectroscopy.

Fan Ren is awarded the Fred and Bonnie Edie Professorship. Professor Ren is responsible for the innovative transfor-mation of the way we educate students in our labs and in our Master’s program. He has initiated groundbreaking and seminal research in the field of electronic materials and devices, pioneered the use of wide bandgap semiconductor sensors for chemical and biological detections and devel-oped semiconductor-based hydrogen sensors capable of ppm detection sensitivity. He has 34 patents, 877 publica-tions and 29,160 citations.

Jason WeaverP R O F E S S O R

5

Carlos Rinaldi is awarded the Charles A. Stokes Professorship. Professor Rinaldi has made pioneering, transformative contributions to the engineering of magnetic nanoparticle suspensions and fundamental contributions to the physical understanding of nanoscale thermal phenomena. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scien-tists and has recently been awarded two competitive NIH R21 Grants and an NSF grant.

Jason Weaver is awarded the William P. and Tracy Cirioli Term Professorship. Professor Weaver has developed a world-re-nowned research program at UF that focuses on the growth and surface chemistry of oxide films that are important in applications of heterogeneous catalysis. In addition to funding from the DOE and NSF, Prof. Weaver recently received a sub-stantial grant from a private company to conduct fundamental studies on the catalytic transformations of methane.

6

The Department of Chemical Engineering is proud to announce that Mark E. Orazem has been

recognized as Distinguished Professor. Professor Mark Orazem holds the ExxonMobil Chemical

Engineering Alumni and the University of Florida Research Foundation Term Professorships and

is an Adjunct Professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology.

Many of his contributions have been in the area of impedance spectroscopy, a powerful analytic

tool employed in all aspects of electrochemistry, including energy devices, corrosion, and sensors.

Professor Orazem has over 180 refereed publications and has co-authored, with Bernard Tribol-

let of the CNRS in Paris, a popular textbook entitled, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy.

The Chinese translation of this textbook was published by the Chemical Industry Press in 2014.

Professor Orazem serves as a consultant to a new international graduate program at the Univer-

sity of Yamanashi in Japan, as well as to a variety of industries. In 2012, Professor Orazem received

the Henry B. Linford Award of the Electrochemical Society for Distinguished Teaching.

Professor Orazem is a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and served for ten years as Associate

Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. He has also served as President of the Inter-

national Society of Electrochemistry.

Dr. Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and AIChE Fellow,

receives the 2015 F. J. and Dorothy Van Antwerpen Award for Service to the Institute! The Van

Antwerpen Award is an AIChE Board of Directors’ Award which recognizes Dr. Curtis’ numerous

activities in professional leadership, including service on the AIChE Board of Directors, the Execu-

tive Board of the Program Committee, and the Publications Committee. She is currently Associate

Editor of the AIChE Journal, Co-Editor of Chemical Engineering Education, and Past Chair of the

Particle Technology Forum.

As Associate Dean for Research at the University of Florida, Dr. Curtis supports faculty and

researchers in developing and maintaining internationally recognized research programs, includ-

ing promoting interdisciplinary research, working with research sponsors, and coordinating the

college’s research institutes and shared user research facilities. Curtis also serves as Director of

the Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which promotes collaboration between Florida’s public

universities to conduct research, education and commercialization in energy technology.

Curtis’ research focuses on the flow behavior of particles, with applications ranging from food

processing, pharmaceutical manufacture, and the aerospace, energy and mining industries to nat-

ural processes such as debris flows and sediments. The impact of her work has been recognized

through numerous research awards including AIChE’s Thomas Baron Award for Fluid-Particle

Systems and AIChE’s Fluidization Lectureship Award.

FA C U LT Y N E W S & AWA R D S

T H I S A W A R D W I L L B E P R E S E N T E D

AT T H E H O N O R S C E R E M O N Y AT

T H E A I C H E A N N U A L M E E T I N G O N

S U N D AY, N O V E M B E R 8 T H , 2 0 1 5 .

Jennifer Sinclair-Curtis

F. J. AND DOROTHY VAN ANTWERPEN AWARD

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR ANNOUNCED

Mark E. Orazem

Au nanoparticles rapidly catalyze oxida-

tion reactions, including those of bio-

mass-derived glycerol to form glyceric

acid, a chemical pre-cursor to polymers.

Pt mixed with ReOx creates acid sites in close

proximity to metal surfaces when exposed to

water, enabling bifunctional acid- and met-

al-catalyzed reactions to efficiently deoxy-

genate biomass-derived chemicals, such as

hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).

The behavior of active sites within zeolite

catalysts are dictated by the size and shape

of the voids created by walls made of Si

and O atoms. Above a dimethylether mol-

ecule is H-bonded to an acid site, created

by the placement of an Al3+ cation into the

zeolite framework.

1 2 3

FA C U LT Y H I G H L I G H T

glycerol

glyceric acid

HMF   1,5-­‐diol  

Dr.

DAVIDHIBBITTSA S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R I N C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G

C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G I S P R O U D T O W E L C O M E A N E W F A C U LT Y M E M B E R .

Hibbitts’ research group will combine

kinetic and isotopic experiments with

state-of-the-art density functional theory

calculations to achieve an atomic-level

understanding of heterogeneous catalysis.

His Ph.D. studies were at the University

of Virginia (advised by Matthew Neurock)

where he learned computational cataly-

sis and from there he did a Post-Doc at

the University of California at Berkeley

(advised by Enrique Iglesia) where he used

a combination of theory and experiments

to study the production of fuels from

carbon monoxide and hydrogen (Fisch-

er-Tropsch synthesis).

The desired shift in the global energy

economy from petroleum-based fuels to

renewable resources will be made possible

through the design of catalysts, including

electro- and photo-catalysts. These catalyst

materials enable the efficient conversion of

feedstocks derived from biomass, natural

gas, and other emerging resources into

value-added fuels and chemicals. Key to

the development of such catalysts is an

understanding of how they behave at the

molecular level, leading to structure-func-

tion relationships which improve catalytic

processes and guide catalyst discovery.

Hibbitts’ research group will combine

multiple techniques to study a variety of

chemical conversions of biomass and shale

gas to attempt to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions through the use of supported

noble metal and zeolite catalysts.

In addition to his research endeavors,

Hibbitts is teaching a course in Molecular

Understanding of Catalysis, available to

graduate Ph.D. and Master’s students this

fall. The course will cover a wide range of

topics in heterogeneous catalysis, including

synthesis, characterization, kinetic and iso-

topic studies, as well as the use of density

functional theory and other computational

methods in the area of catalysis.

Powering The New Engineer8

University of Florida Chemical Engineer-

ing alum Alex Moreno (’83) has always

seen himself building businesses, even

before he began his undergraduate jour-

ney at UF.

Mr. Moreno has successfully launched and

developed a number of companies and proj-

ects—ranging from environmental services,

health care staffing, and construction and

development—over the last 25 years. Prior

to 1998, Mr. Moreno owned a company

called A.M. Brown, which was a holding

company for a variety of environmental

businesses—soils and materials testing,

environmental consulting, environmental

testing and core drilling. He founded U.S.

Biosystems in 1998 and it became one of

the largest environmental testing laborato-

ries in Florida. He has also managed

Alex Moreno accepts the first ChemE Alumni Professional

Accomplishment in Entrepreneurship Award on April 17, 2015.

ALEXMORENO‘83

A L U M N I H I G H L I G H T

construction projects from small office ren-

ovations to multi-million dollar build-outs.

Mr. Moreno is currently the CEO and

Co-founder of Nightingale Nurses (one of the

fastest-growing healthcare staffing com-

pany in the US, with over 500 employees

and revenues in excess of $50 million). He is

also the CEO and Founder of Panther Devel-

opment Investments (providing diversified

developmental services to Native American

nations), with work in the areas of energy

trading and investments.

Earlier this spring, Mr. Moreno

was invited back to campus as

the keynote speaker at the 16th

Annual GRACE Symposium.

After receiving the 1st annual

ChemE Alumni Professional

Accomplishment in Entrepre-

neurship Award, we were very

eager to talk with Mr. Moreno to

find out the keys to his success.

Mr. Moreno was kind enough to

share several thoughts pertain-

ing to best practices for student success,

successes and failures in business and the

need to “dream big”.

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR

BACKGROUND, WHERE YOU’RE FROM

AND WHY YOU CHOSE UF?

I was born in Colombia. When I was 10, my

family moved to Fort Lauderdale. I have

five brothers and one sister, and I am the

middle child in a very traditional family.

My older brother was the first to attend UF

after finishing his undergrad at FAU, but

I was the first one to attend college away

from home [Fort Lauderdale] and my dad

had some very straightforward advice on

my attending UF. He told me, “Great school.

Go there”. I knew that UF was well known

for the engineering and medical programs.

I always wanted to be in engineering, how-

ever I remember walking into a hospital

and quickly realizing that was not the

environment I wanted to be in for the rest

of my life.

Alumni Highlight on

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE CHEMICAL

ENGINEERING OVER OTHER

ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES?

My major was chemical engineering with a

minor in electrical engineering. My cousin

was an industrial engineering major and

was also my roommate at UF. I chose ChemE

as my major because it is pretty broad in

what you learn. You learn to see

things in a holistic manner...in

a big way—other engineering

disciplines are focused in one

area. I never wanted to change

my major—I always wanted to

expand on what I was learning

in ChemE. After UF, and before

starting my MBA program at

Harvard, I worked at General

Electric as part of the Chemi-

cal Metallurgical Management

Program, an elite and highly

selective 2-year management

training program.

HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT?

I didn’t get a chance to socialize as much

as I could have with my fellow CHE class-

mates. That all as changed now and I would

highly recommend students take advan-

tage of these opportunities. I did participate

in waterskiing as extra activity, and tried

to finish my degree in less than four years.

UF had quarters at the time, so I was able to

load up on classes. I can recall in one class

I got an 80 on an exam, and the average in

the class was a 27. I was told that my score

had to be disqualified or everyone else

would fail!

PERTAINING TO YOUR BUSINESSES,

HOW DO YOU RETAIN AND MOTIVATE

YOUR EMPLOYEES?

As for the businesses I have founded over

the years, motivating my employees is

among my highest priorities to driving suc-

cess. I hold them to a high standard, but I

give them the space to be their own per-

son and to make mistakes. However, my

role as CEO is to find opportunities that

build the business, while my COO handles

day-to-day tasks. This allows me to focus

on the big picture and overall growth for

the company.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE

STUDENTS WHO ARE CURRENTLY

IN THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

PROGRAM AT UF?

When it comes to how a student can get

themselves to stand out from others, life

has a way of separating achievers and

non-achievers. The ability to be motivated

is what works; and your attitude has a huge

impact on where you end up—it’s not just

about your brains. If students are having

a hard time with classes or finding moti-

vation, I would tell them to just stay at it

and keep plugging. This is such a great life

lesson because there are periods of life that

won’t be easy. [Achieving your dreams] is

not an easy journey!

HOW DO YOU STAY

BALANCED IN YOUR

PERSONAL LIFE?

Maintaining a healthy work/

life balance is also import-

ant. I like to travel and spend

time with my family. When

you spend time with family,

you lose focus on the every-

day work “stuff” and you can

focus on what’s most import-

ant. Family means everything

to me and I purposely find

time to spend meaningful

moments with my wife and children to

build lifelong memories. It is the behavior I

want to see my children exemplify as they

grow older, and I would encourage students

to think along these lines as well. Work

hard, dream big—but don’t lose sight of the

things that really matter to you in life along

the way.

9

“ I p u r p o s e ly f i n d t i m e t o s p e n d m e a n i n g f u l m o m e nt s w i t h my w i f e

a n d c h i l d r e n t o b u i l d l i f e l o n g m e m o -r i e s . I t i s t h e b e h av i o r I wa nt t o s e e my c h i l d r e n e x e mp l i f y a s t h e y g r o w

o l d e r, a n d I w o u l d e n c o u ra g e s t u d e nt s t o t h i n k a l o n g t h e s e l i n e s a s w e l l . ”

A L U M N I H I G H L I G H T

“Mr. Moreno has achieved above and

beyond in his career, understands the

value of the education he received at UF

and purposely finds time to come to cam-

pus to pass along some of his knowledge

and experience to our students—many of

whom hope to one day follow in his foot-

steps as a successful entrepreneur,” says

Department Chair, Rich Dickinson.

Doctoral student and President of GRACE,

Samantha Roberts, agrees. “To hear from

Mr. Moreno about his successes, failures

and best practices in life and in business

helps us students tremendously as we

chart our own career paths. We are very

thankful for his time and for his ongoing

future mentorship.”

10 Powering The New Engineer

The Unit Operations Lab is one of

few labs with pilot plant-scale

equipment. Thanks to a generous

donation, the lab is currently undergoing

substantial upgrades. Under the direction of

faculty member Dmitry Kopelevich, these

upgrades will significantly enhance

students’ learning experience and will

introduce them to state-of-the-art indus-

trial equipment.

One of the major upgrades is a complete

renovation of the control system for dis-

tillation columns, including installation of

new Coriolis flow meters, guided wave radar

level sensors, pressure transmitters and a

rebuilding of control valves. These instru-

ments are managed by a new DeltaV control

system, which supports the WirelessHART

communication protocol, thus simplifying

further upgrades to the control system by

installation of wireless field devices.

The 50-year old thin film evaporator is

also being replaced. The new evaporator

system is being equipped with advanced

sensors, including in-line refractometers

for real-time analysis of feed and product

compositions. Another system undergoing

substantial renovation is the rotary drum

filter, with upgrades focused on improving

control over such system parameters as

vacuum pressure and drum rotation speed.

unit ops update

D E PA R T M E N T U P D AT E

Powering The New Engineer 11

5th year student, Zak Wright, works with the continuous filtration system.

SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE

AN D UP GR ADES

TO THE UNIT OPERATIONS LAB

Student Organization RestoredE L E C T R O C H E M I C A L S O C I E T Y S T U D E N T C H A P T E R I S R E S T O R E D I N T H E D E PA R T M E N T O F C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G .

View the map online at http://www.che.ufl.edu/AIChE/alumni_map.html.

ALUMNI MAP

The ECS Student Chapter at UF was restored this past spring under the guidance of

CHE faculty member Dr. Mark Orazem. The kickoff meeting hosted speaker Dr. Bernard

Tribollet of Université Pierre et Marie Curie. Dr. Tribollet’s talk gave an overview of elec-

trochemical measurements and various applications. Student chapter officers were

also elected at the first meeting to make up the executive board. A second successful

meeting hosted speaker Dr. Kirk Ziegler, CHE faculty member. Dr. Ziegler’s talk focused

on applications of electrochemistry within the field of nanotechnology for alternative

energy. While the ECS student chapter is newly reformed, we have members from sev-

eral UF departments, which represent the wide range of electrochemical applications

across campus. The student chapter has many exciting events planned for the upcom-

ing year and would like to extend an invitation to anyone interested to contact Justin

Wong, ECS Student Chapter President, at jwong89@ufl.edu for more information.

12

AIChE has created a UF

Chemical Engineering

Alumni Map to serve as a

helpful resource for ChE

undergraduates! The map

gives students the chance

to network and see where

a chemical engineering

degree will take them.

To be on the map, send

your information (e.g. your

name, company/graduate

school, location, and posi-

tion/title) to Pearl Leung

at leungp@ufl.edu.

After attending an inspirational work-

shop in March 2015, a group of Gators,

including ChemE undergrad Tanya

Therathanakorn, knew that they had to

get involved with Limbitless Solutions.

Limbitless Solutions is a non-profit

organization was founded at the Uni-

versity of Central Florida in 2014 and

is focused on creating a world without

limb deficiency. Limbitless Solutions

firmly believes that no one should

profit from a child missing an arm. The

organization utilizes the technology

of additive manufacturing to supply

bionic limbs for kids with disabilities.

The Limbitless Solutions: Gainesville

Branch was established at the end of

the Spring 2015 semester, and is the

first satellite location of Limbitless

Solutions to be created. The branch is

mostly comprised of students from

engineering majors, but also includes

majors ranging from biology to com-

puter science.

The branch is also involved in the orga-

nization’s “12 Arms for Christmas”

project and their current “Books and

Bionics” Indiegogo campaign which

aims to deliver 75 bionic arms and books

for displaced Syrian children.

In a span of eight weeks, students have

worked to build a Limbitless test arm—

the first steps towards being able to

help kids in need. The Limbitless arm

is comprised of 3D-printed parts as well

as components that can be easily found

and ordered on Amazon. All together,

the arm costs less than $350 in parts

and is relatively simple to assemble.

The printed arm provides an affordable

solution to a child constantly outgrow-

ing their prosthetic arm.

13

S T U D E N T N E W S

THE GAINESVILLE BRANCH IS

CURRENTLY WORKING ON

IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ARM,

INCLUDING A MECHANICAL ELBOW,

WATERPROOFING THE ELECTRONICS

AND ENHANCING THE SIGNAL

INPUTS FROM A CHILD.

For more info, please visit Limbitless-Solutions.org & 3DHope.com

Limbitless Solutions

14

This year, ChE undergraduate Aaron Thomas

headed up the UF Engineers Without Borders

team (EWB-UF) in Aripalca, Bolivia. The team

has been working in an agrarian community

of Aripalca for three years and is comprised of

Chemical, Civil, Environmental and Mechani-

cal Engineering students who give a great

deal of their free time during the year to see

various projects make a lasting difference in

the lives within the Bolivian community.

Located in a river valley, the Aripalca com-

munity relies on an open channel irrigation

system to deliver water to their fields during

the dry parts of the year (the communi-

ty practices subsistence farming). During

the wet season, the community experienc-

es heavy rainfall and a swelling of the river.

This year’s project was to protect a partic-

ularly vulnerable portion of the irrigation

system with a wall of 1x1x2 gabion blocks.

A gabion is a large wire cage filled with

stones that acts as a protective structure. The

wall constructed by EWB is 33 meters long,

two rows high and was constructed over ten

days by seven UF students, one professor, one

Bolivian engineer and about 15-20 members

of the Aripalca community. Community input

is utilized at every step to ensure the project

will be maintained. Additionally, everything

that is built by EWB is made from local mate-

rials so that the community can repair the

system in case of flood damage.

Thomas’ role as team lead on this project has

been to organize the design, fundraising and

overall construction. Managing the budget,

coordinating trip logistics and design approv-

als and garnering support from various

Rotary Clubs all contributed to the project

being successfully completed on budget.

Aaron says, “As a student, it was an awesome

chance to practice real project management

and to take a design from concept to a physi-

cal structure. I learned an enormous amount

about both the technical aspects of gabions

and realistic construction and funding goals.

My greatest take away from the project has

been the strength in numbers; a project of

this scope can only happen with the contri-

butions of many.”

CommunityEffort

Aaron Thomas (fourth from left in top photo)

S T U D E N T H I G H L I G H T

15

S T U D E N T AWA R D S

AWA R D W I N N E R S

Undergraduate Carmen Gil (3rd from left) won First Place in the Physics and Nanoscience category at the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM for her presentation “A Theoretical Investigation of Ferromagnetism in Doped Transition Metal Dichalco-genide WSe2”. The conference was held in February in Washington, DC. Carmen then presented her research at the 249th ACS National Conference in Denver.

Recent grad, Brad Ganoe ‘15, receives an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Award with

his proposal on the development of semi-definite programming tech-niques for solving the quantum many-electron problem in chemistry. Brad will be attending University of California, Berkeley to obtain his PhD in Chemistry. NSF awarded the GRF to 2,000 individuals from among 16,500 applicants this year.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursu-ing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

NATIONAL SCIENCE

FOUNDATION

AWARD

WINNER

ChemE PhD Candidate, Kevin Ward, has

recently been awarded four fellowships:

The NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer

Institutes Fellowship, The NSF Graduate

Research Fellowship, The Chateaubriand

STEM Fellowship and The NASA Florida

Space Grant Consortium Dissertation

Improvement Fellowship.

Kevin joined the Department of Chemical

Engineering in Fall 2013 after completing

his BS in chemical engineering at North

Carolina State University. During his first semester, he joined Dr.

Ranga Narayanan’s lab to conduct research on fluid instabilities.

Since then, Kevin’s doctoral research has evolved into a study of

Faraday instability generated through both traditional mechanical

forcing and electrostatic forcing. This research involves both theoret-

ical and experimental studies conducted at UF, the University of Lille

1 in Lille, France, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in

Tsukuba, Japan. Applications of his research include enhanced

mixing in microfluidic devices, a deeper understanding of liquid

sloshing dynamics, space enabling operations, droplet movement,

and enhancements to a wide array of processes through utilization

of pulsatile forcing.

With his NSF EAPSI Fellowship, chose to travel to Tsukuba, Japan to

conduct research at the Japan Aerospace Exploration

Agency (JAXA) along with Dr. Satoshi Matsumoto on Fara-

day instability generated via electrostatic oscillation.

The world-class research staff and availability of specialized

equipment at JAXA allowed Kevin to conduct experimen-

tal research that will be compared to his theoretical work

completed at UF.

With the NSF GRF, Kevin will fund the remainder of his

doctoral research on Faraday instability, as well as K-12

outreach and the broader dissemination of his research.

He plans to use the NASA Florida Space Grant Consor-

tium Dissertation Improvement Fellowship to fund travel to multiple

conferences, including the ASGSR 2015 Annual Meeting and the APS

DFD 2015 Annual Meeting. He will also use those funds to design and

produce experimental equipment for his research in France and Japan.

Kevin will use the Chateaubriand Fellowship to travel to Lille, France

in January 2016 to conduct research with Dr. Farzam Zoueshtiagh at

the University of Lille 1. He will spend 5 months in France to conduct

experimental research on Faraday instability generated via mechanical

oscillation in three-fluid systems, while pursuing a dual degree at UF

and the University of Lille 1. The research conducted during the Cha-

teaubriand fellowship will allow Kevin to validate theoretical models

for three fluid Faraday systems that were developed during the first

two years of his graduate study.

K E V I N WA R D Kevin Ward with his fiancée Kimberly Marshburn

D E P A R T M E N T O F C H E M I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G

P . O . B O X 1 1 6 0 0 5G A I N E S V I L L E , F L 3 2 6 1 1

W W W . C H E . U F L . E D U

E V E N T SThe AIChE Annual Meeting is the premier educational forum for chemical engineers interested in innovation and professional grow th. Academic and industr y exper t s wi l l cover wide range of topic s re levant to cut t ing-edge research, new technologies, and emerging grow th areas in chemical engineering.

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