A newsletter from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tulane University Volume 8, Issue 2 www.tulane.edu/~ceng Summer/Fall, 2002

Notes from the Chairman Inside This Issue:

Reprint of Chemical Engineering Education

journal article featuring our departmentTulane polymer center spearheaded in theChemE departmentVintage pictures of faculty and students (email

us scanned pictures for future issues)

Yunfeng Lu featured in Inside Tulane

Dear friends:

It is a pleasure to greet you as the current Chair, and to update you on the news of the Department. I took over from the capable hands of Kyriakos Papadopoulos in January and am indeed grateful to him for seeing us through the crucial visit and review by the Accreditation Board (ABET) last November.Both Kyriakos and Brian Mitchell put in countless hours of selfless effort to prepare the documentationfor the review. Our final report from the Accreditation Board clearly indicates that they were very pleased with the level of undergraduate education we provide. The Board cited a high quality of teaching, a commitment to scholarship, and a high level of student satisfaction in the educational experience at Tulane. The Department will continue its mission to provide a unique undergraduate education where teaching is directed to developing each one of our students, where opportunities for undergraduates research experiences exist, and where a rigorous curriculum is combined with practical experience.

from NASA to establish the Tulane Institute ofMacromolecular Science and Engineering (TIMES) will be a tremendous boost to the research productivity of the department as five faculty fromChem.E. are associated with the Institute. And our department continues to be well-represented in teaching awards - this year it was Kyriakos Papadopoulos, Dan Lacks and Vic Law.

In keeping with the dynamic evolution of the department, we have modified our curriculum to provide our students with a significant exposure to technical and business fields that are distinct fromChemical Engineering, but that help develop complementary skills very useful to a ChemicalEngineer's career goals. We have developed a "Concentrations Oriented" sequence of five technical electives in Biochemical Enginering, EnvironmentalEngineering, or Business studies. The new curriculum does away with the formal requirement of Circuits and Statics/Dynamics, and gives students flexibility in their technical electives. We would love to have our alumni give us feedback and advice on our curriculum.

In the various sections of the newsletter, you will find news of our current students, faculty and staff. Their accomplishments are a source of great pride, joy, and hope. Our students continue to do very well. Wegraduated a wonderful class of 23, and look forward to following their progress over the years. Our newest faculty member, Yunfeng Lu is rapidly establishing an excellent academic career, with an exciting research program in nanotechnology. Yunfeng's first grant application to the National Science Foundation was successful and is truly a mark of recognition of his research ideas. The grant

While I am happy to report on the continued progress of the department, I wish to inform you also of

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changes in the way the Department and Tulane will operate. The university has transitioned to a Decentralized Management Center (DMC) mode of operation starting this Fiscal year (July 1). Under this system, each unit (for example, the School of Engineering) becomes responsible for its own budget. The costs of running the university are apportioned to each unit based on the number of full timeequivalents (FTE) associated with the unit.

The implications to the Department are significant. For the first time, we have clear budgetary targets. We know our costs and the revenue we are expected to generate. I look at this as an opportunity. Additional revenue will flow directly into enhancing the educational experience for our students - bringing our experimental and computer labs up-to-date and maintaining them, increasing our faculty to reach a critical size by national standards, providing additional administrative support, etc. Indirect cost recovery from departmental research now comesdirectly to the department providing an incentive to faculty research. We have the opportunity to be creative and design executive graduate programs that generate revenue. Fundraising now has clear objectives as endowments and gifts from alumni and friends will be used in their entirety to meet the mission of the Chemical Engineering Department.But together with the opportunity comes the realization that the University will not subsidize our operation. We do have difficulties. Our present revenue from research, tuition and gifts do not matchour expenditures. We do not have the critical faculty size needed to maintain a constant research revenue stream. And our undergraduate student body is small,although that is a distinguishing feature of our department since it allows us to work on an individual basis with each student.

I look to you, our alumni and well-wishers, for your help in this endeavor. We have some clear priorities in building the department. The renovation of the Taylor Laboratory is a very high priority. Currently, the space in the Taylor laboratory is inadequately used since it is in very poor condition. If fully renovated to contain three floors, it will provide a tremendous boost to our operations. We will be able to get additional laboratory space allowing us to implement new teaching and research laboratories. This will help lead to an increase in program size at

both the undergraduate and graduate level, that will eventually lead to a financially self-sustainingoperation.

I also seek your involvement in helping place our students. As you have all experienced, we do not have a significant number of companies that recruit chemical engineers coming to campus. We plan to work with Career Services to try to change that, but we also look to you to help our students find jobs and internship opportunities. If you see such opportunities in your company, please do contact us.

And finally, we are always so happy to hear news from you, your professional achievements and your progress through life's transitions. Please do write to us and let us know how you are.

With very best regards,

Vijay John, Chair

3rd Annual Tulane Engineering

Forum

The 3rd Annual Tulane Engineering Forum will be held on Friday, September 13, 2002 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the New Orleans Hilton Riverside and Towers. The forum provides an opportunity for professionals to learn from industry, academic and governmental experts about issues related to this year’s topic, “Energy and the Environment.” It also provides the opportunity to qualify for six professional development hours.

Individual registration is $200 and sponsorship opportunities are available. For more informationplease visit the website at www.eng.tulane.edu and visit it often. As the program takes further shape, updates to the site are made. Forum Coordinator, Jenny Kottler is also available in case of questions.She can be reached at jkottler@bellsouth.net or 504-840-9933.

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Faculty NewsInfiltration," with Prof. Karsten Thompson of the LSU chemicalengineering department. He was elected Chair of the AIChENew Orleans Local Section, and accompanied students to the AIChE Southern Regional Conference in San Juan, PR in April.During April and May, he gave technical presentations atCeramatec, Inc, in Salt Lake City, UT; Technanogy in SantaAna, CA; Tennesse Technological University in Cookeville,TN; and State of Louisiana "Speaking of Science" programpresentations at St. Pius Elementary School in Lafayette;Springfield Elementary School; and Breaux Bridge ElementarySchool. Brian will be on sabbatical for the 2002-2003 academicyear.

Daniel De Kee published the second edition of "Transport Processes in Bubbles, Drops and Particles" this summer. The publisher is Taylor & Francis, New York. He also presentedpapers on bubble motion in non-Newtonian fluids and on theeffect of stress on diffusion in geomembranes at the TwentyFirst South Eastern Conference on Theoretical and AppliedMechanics (Orlando, May) and at the 9th Biennial InternationalConference on Nuclear and Hazardous Waste Management(Reno, August) respectively. The latter contribution was co-authored with Dr. Hinestroza and with Ph.D. student Q. Liu.

Richard D. Gonzalez gave an invited talk at the Louisiana New Orleans section of the AIChE on the topic “Solid AcidCatalysts: Will they Replace H2SO4 and HF?”

Kyriakos Papadopoulos received the 2002 Lee Johnson Excellence-in-Teaching Award, given annually by the Society of Tulane Engineers. Kyriakos is one of three Tulane facultywho have received this award twice. With Yunfeng Lu as Co-PI, he received a grant funded by the Louisiana Board of Regents and Oronite-Chevron, entitled “Acid-NeutralizationAbility of Marine-Cylinder Lubricants at High Temperatures.”

Vijay John participated in a workshop on Nanomanufacturingsponsored by the National Science Foundation, and a workshop on Self-Assembly - the Future, sponsored by the U.S. Army, theItalian Ministry of Research, and the NSF.

Daniel J. Lacks gave a talk and chaired a session at theHorizons in Complex Systems meetings in Sicily, in December.He also gave talks at the University of Wisconsin, RensselaerPolytechnic Institute, Lehigh University and NortheasternUniversity this past semester.

Kim O'Connor was promoted to the rank of Professor, invitedto chair sessions on prostate cancer and tissue engineering at thenational meeting of Society for In Vitro Biology and NASACell Science Conference, presented her research at these meetings and at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers,and published these studies in Biotechnology andBioengineering, Tissue Engineering, and the Journal of Cellularand Molecular Medicine.

Yunfeng Lu received a NSF/EPA grant to conduct green chemistry research using nanostructured catalysts. He gave an invited talk in the 2002 IUPAC World Polymer Conference onnanocomposites in July.

Brian S. Mitchell was promoted to the rank of Professor, received a Collaborative Research grant from the National Science Foundation tostudy "Innovations in Net-Shape CompositeFabrication through Microscale Modeling of

Recent Ph.D. Graduates

2002

Juan Hinestroza (DeKee, post-doc at Tulane)

2001

Richard Enmon (O’Connor, Sloan Kettering)Rachel Marcus (Gonzalez) Blake Simmons (John, Sandia National Labs)Matt Vincent (Gonzalez, Exxon-Mobil)Lixong Wen (Papadopoulos, Intel)Lixuan Zhu (De Kee, U. Penn)

2000

Jim Muhitch (O’Connor, Merck/Merial)Ning Sun (De Kee, UT-Austin)Rong Wu (Papadopoulos, Quaker Chemicals)

Recent M.S. Graduates

2002

Nosa Ekunwe (Lacks) Ian Foley (John, Shell)

2001

Christina Davis (Papadopoulos, Shell)Limin Liu (John, Tulane University)Nikica Maljkovic (Mitchell, MPT, Inc.) Jaoquin Palomo (Pintauro) Steve Carr (Law)

Undergraduate Class of 2002

Essam Al-Sulaim

Amr Alghamidi

Lance Amy

Azaria Azene

Rachael Beeker

Luke Bohanan

Scott Eklund

Seth Fujinaka

Richard Gray

Kimarie Hanson

Jason Hinton

Elisabeth Hurley

Jo Leissinger

Kelly Macdonald

Lindsey McMonagle

Lin Mel

Justin Pelletier

Christiane Pineda

Christopher Rives

Michael Sabatini

Rodrigo Sol

Christopher Visser

Jennifer Young

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T u l a n e I n s t i t u t e f o r

Macromolecular Engineering

and Science (TIMES)

Tulane is home to internationally-recognizedresearchers in engineering and the sciences and awide variety of government- and industry-sponsored research is conducted at Tulane.

Polymer research at Tulane University is carriedout by the Tulane Institute for MacromolecularEngineering and Science (TIMES) where sixteenfaculty members in engineering and sciencerepresenting six departments are conductingresearch in the general area of polymers. Theexisting strengths in the polymer area include theinherent size of the group, the ability to coverbasic as well as applied research, the potentialfor focused interdisciplinary research activities,and the ability of the group to cover the entirespectrum of novel polymer research anddevelopment from synthesis to their end use.This allows for a unique opportunity to conductand initiate multidisciplinary research efforts.

The Tulane Institute for MacromolecularEngineering and Science (TIMES) was thebrainchild of Professor Daniel De Kee who actsas its Director. Professor Brian Mitchell is theAssociate Director. It grew out of need toestablish collaborations with local industry,which is heavily oriented toward petroleumproduction and refining. Polymers were seen as a general area that could combine facultyexpertise with industrial and governmentalinterests.

We thank Ian Foley (BS ’95, MS ’02)for making again possible and organizing the recent visit, this time of our juniors,to Shell’s Robert Training Center thispast Spring. Ian also hosted ourfreshmen at Shell’s 3-D explorationfacility at One Shell Square.

Puerto Rico - Student AIChE

Conference 2002

Tulane University’s student chapter of AIChErecently returned from the Region C conferencein San Juan, Puerto Rico. Due to a fantasticfundraising opportunity at the New OrleansSuperdome, AIChE was able to completely fundthe trip for all 19 undergraduate students whoattended. This was a record participation forTulane, and the second largest group at theconference. Among the 19 Tulane students whoattended, sophomores Carlos Villa and David

Johnson earned accolades in the papercompetition presenting their original research,earning third overall (first in section) and third insection, respectively. All students were given theopportunity to participate in various plant trips,including visits to the Bacardi Rum facility,Merck, Pfizer, and more. Along with thenetworking opportunities presented in thetechnical portion of the conference, theUniversity of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez alsomade certain that conference participantsexperienced some cultural immersion duringtheir stay. This included a trip to the El Yunquerain forest and the closing banquet in historicalold San Juan. Tulane extended its stay a day anda half after the conference ended, allowingstudents to explore Puerto Rico or spend a day atthe beach. It was an excellent trip and Tulanewas very well represented. In the photo belowCarlos Villa is receiving his award.

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e of the most interesting and useful

e critical

promise of even smaller

be the first

omponents, and other products are manufactured and used,

vastly increasing data storage and processing

briefly for a private company

ent layers making up a computeri

tally different

n methods, contrasted with top-downe

an

inside

to

"That's the magic of nanostructure materials," says Lu.

reprinted with permission from the August 1, 2002 edition of

Arthur Nead may be reached at anead@tulane.edu

says Lu. A few of the anticipated benefits include detecting cancers before they spread, creating materials with super strength andcapabilities.

Some of these goals may not be achieved for years, but many aspects of nanotechnology are already moving fromthe realm of fundamental research to commercialapplications. Lu's research at Tulane is on this track. A 1998 doctoral graduate of the University of New Mexico, Luworked for a year at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., thenbefore coming to Tulane.

One focus of his work is on developing new materials for use in fabricating computer microchips. "Right now I have aresearch grant to develop a thin film material for use in separating the differm crochip," says Lu.

One of the distinguishing features of nanotechnology is the exotic set of forces at work in the nano-realm. "Whenyou get down to the nanostructure scale," says Lu, "there are all kinds of unique properties that may be to

Nanotechnology—

no small thing from those possessed by conventional bulk."Using a fabrication process unique to the scale of

nanostructures, Lu's computer chip film is "self-assembled"by the predictable, spontaneous actions of individualmolecules. Nanostructure manufacturing techniques rely on an understanding of the structural and inter-active properties of materials at the molecular level. "These are what we call bottom-up fabricatio

BY ARTHUR NEADGood things come in small packages, people say.

Yunfeng Lu, assistant professor in Tulane's chemicalengineering department, agrees, and he's engaged inresearch to create somsmall things around.

Lu's specialty is the emerging field of nanotechnology,the study of extremely small structures. "Nanometer means10 meters—one billionth of a meter," says Lu. "A nanostructure material is a material having th

m thods," says Lu.Another commercial application Lu is developing is the

use of nanostructure materials as chemical sensors for waterpollution. "We use a highly porous material that entraps molecules of all the pollutants," says Lu. "Then we c

dimension of usually less than 100 nanometers."Nanoscientists are therefore concerned with objects the

size of molecules and aggregates of molecules. One high-profile success story fueling the desire to create and controlextremely small objects is the miniaturization of electronic and especially of computer components that has been achieved over the last several decades. Nanotechnology,with its vision of new methods of fabrication geared to an entirely new scale, holds out the

determine what kinds and how much pollution there is."He has designed fabrication techniques for nano-

composite thin films for use as super-tough coatings. "Thesefilms are modeled on the structure of seashells," says Lu. "Ifyou look at a section of an abalone shell under an electronmicroscope, you see layers of calcium carbonate. Betweenthem are layers of organic bio-polymer, a protein. Cracking cannot propagate through the whole structure—you can onlybreak individual layers. So the structure is very tough."

Lu also is working on materials with medical andbiological applications. He has developed a nanomaterialthat self-assembles in the form of an onion-like structure ofconcentric spheres. The structure can be used for the timed-release of drugs or other chemicals by placing them

and faster computer components.Interest in nanotechnology and its many possible benefits

is worldwide. In January 2000, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order establishing the NationalNanotechnology Initiative, together with a budget request for $225 million to fund a full spectrum of nanotechnologyresearch projects. Since then, the United States hasincreased its research budget to some $500 million. Other countries around the globe are generously fundingnanoresearch as well, each one competing to

the spheres at the manufacturing stage. Nanotechnology for a greener environment also is being

advanced at Tulane. Lu and C.J. Li, professor of chemistry,are together developing nanostructured catalysts that canimprove the emission control of vehicles or can reduce theuse of atmosphere-harming solvents by enabling water

nation to sponsor breakthrough developments.Behind this investment is the conviction that

nanotechnology presents humanity with an opportunityamounting to a new industrial revolution. Developing theability to manipulate matter precisely at the molecular level,it will revolutionize the way medicines, electronic

function as a solvent in industrial cleaning applications.

This article isInside Tulane

c

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Vintage Pictures of Faculty and Alumni

Three former department heads in 1981: Robert E. Weaver, Francis M.

Taylor, Raymond V. Bailey

Practice School 1959: Professor Mack Gilkeson is on the far

left, second row, with a white shirt and no jacket. Professor

James Kinard is on the far right, top row. Third from the right

in the back row, on the right side of the Shell emblem is S.

Oertling, Shell plant manager. The student in the back row

wearing a white jacket (third from the left in the back row) is

George Swan. [If you see yourself in this picture send us an e-

mail identifying you. Also, please send us vintage pictures you

may have so that we can include them in future issues]