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Research
(l-r) Jonathan Dordick and Shekhar Garde are part of a team working to develop
drugs faster and more economically.
Photo by Mark McCarty
More Research News»
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Laboratory Highlights
The department maintains extensive research and instructional laboratories which house myriad special and unique equipment developed for specific studies, as well as extensive analytical and optical instrumentation, minicomputers, and microcomputers.
Department research programs also use a number of major university facilities including;
Interdepartmental Research
Students in the Polymer Processing and Technology Lab examine a batch of recyled polymer. Using items such as carpeting, polyster clothing, and detergent bottles, the goal is to recycle the items and create a reusuable polymer base that is as pure as unrecycled polymer.
Several research areas involve participation and cooperation with other departments.
Such areas include;
- polymer studies with the Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry Departments,
- fermentation and other biochemical research with the Biology Department,
- studies in fluid mechanics with the Mathematics Department,
- polymer membrane fabrication with the Chemistry Department, and
- research on lubrication and other interfacial phenomena with the Mechanical Engineering Department
- Rensselaer Exploratory Center for Cheminformatics Research.
Research into state-of-the-art design and optimization of CVD reactors for semiconductor production is conducted jointly with the Center for Integrated Electronics. |
A season of change is sweeping through the department of chemical and biological engineering, where new faculty and new research directions are set to guide students to great achievements!
Following is a list of the primary research areas of the department. Click on the topic for a list of department faculty working in that discipline.
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Research interests are centered on developing and understanding the phenomena involved in producing advanced materials for the optical, electronic, and allied industries. Thermodynamic, transport, and chemical processes governing the formation and subsequent behavior of these materials are under active investigation.
Research areas include modeling and optimizing CVD-reactor-system designs for developing nonlinear and electro-optic inorganic and organic materials for switching and memory applications.
Additional research areas are understanding phenomena involved in the production and use of microlens arrays, wave-guide lasers, and determining the composition, property, and structure relationships of crystalline and glassy materials.
Research projects in biochemical engineering emphasize biocatalysis, bioseparations, and metabolic engineering. Fundamental and applied aspects of enzyme technology, mammalian cell culture, membrane sorption and separation, displacement chromatography, and salt-induced precipitation are important areas of focus.
New designs involving aqueous and nonaqueous enzyme technology are being developed, as are new types of membrane-entrapped-enzyme and animal-cell-suspension reactors, which are being built, tested, and analyzed. Metabolic engineering processes are being used to develop high-rate bacterial fermentations and overproducing hybridoma cultures for producing chemical intermediates and monoclonal antibodies, respectively. Control theory of biological processes and an optical biosensor for metal detection are also being pursued.
Projects in biomedical engineering involve the design of polymeric inhibitors of bacterial toxins and viruses, and the use of micro fabrication tools to modulate the interaction of mammalian cells with their environment for applications in tissue engineering.
Projects in this area involve the mechanics of fluidized beds, spouted beds, bubbles, low Reynolds number hydrodynamics, kinetic theory, two-phase flow, and surfactant behavior in organic-aqueous systems.
Topics of interest include free convection stability, forced convection (particularly in laminar flow systems), fluid mechanics and change-of-phase heat transfer in thin films, fluid-to-particle heat transfer in fluidized and spouted beds, and boiling. Studies on heat and mass transfer at interfaces are also underway.
Work in this area includes design, construction, experimentation, and the generation of data for use by reaction system modelers. Both fast-flow thermal and pseudostatic photochemical systems are used. Various light sources, such as lasers, combined with electro-optical detection techniques are employed and the reactions are monitored using mass spectrometry. In some work, the light-emitting and electrical-charge generation aspects of reactions are also investigated.
Problems under investigation include interfacial resistance to mass transfer and the interaction between surface forces and interfacial convection. Work in the interfacial area is concerned with heat, mass, and momentum transfer in multicomponent, ultra thin, liquid films.
Research includes studies on condensation and evaporation in the contact line region, distillation form ultra thin films, lubrication, surface-tension-driven instabilities in atomically clean liquid metals, pattern formation in dendritic growth, imaging interferometry and ellipsometry, development of aerogel materials for dielectric layers. protein-solid interaction and the design of biocompatible surfaces.
Research is in progress on simultaneous heat and mass transfer in porous media; the effects of interfacial phenomena on mass transfer; diffusion and mixing in laminar flow systems; transient dispersion processes in capillaries, porous media nad open channels; and crystal growth phenomena.
Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations are being used in combination with statistical mechanical theories to understand thermodynamics, structure, and kinetics of biomolecules in aqueous solutions. Special emphasis is placed on understanding and relating water structure near different solutes and in different environments to resulting interactions (e.g., hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions). Molecular simulation techniques are also being applied to polymeric systems to understand penetrant solubility and diffusivity in polymers.
Research focuses on polymer reaction engineering including devolatilization and heat transfer. Current work emphasizes bulk polymerizations in tubular reactors and segregation phenomena in stirred tank reactors.
Under study are ways of enhancing heat transfer to fluids in laminar flow and the application of polymer devolatilization technology to unconventional substances. The recovery of commingled scrap plastics by selective dissolution is a major activity. Other active areas include structure-property relationships, rheology, extrusion, and a large interdisciplinary program on biocatalysis in polymer synthesis and modification.
A major focus of this research is the development of realistic, robust control strategies for multivariable chemical processes having parameter and process uncertainties. Such strategies are created to exploit the dynamic properties inherent in the systems. Integration of the modeling, design, and control of specialty chemical and pharmaceutical processes is of particular interest.
Research projects in separation and bioseparations employ fundamental concepts for solving applied problems in the biological and environmental fields.
Current projects emphasize interactions of proteins with synthetic membranes and chromatographic media, high throughput screening, combinatorial and computational chemistry, spectroscopy, chip technology, proteomics, modification of polymeric surfaces for bioseparations and environmental applications, and the recovery of proteins from complex biological solutions using fusion affinity adsorption, pressure-driven membrane processes, displacement chromatography and expanded-bed adsorption.
Activities include molecular simulation, the analysis and correlation of phase-equilibrium data, the development and evaluation of fluid-phase equations of state, and the study of topics in solution thermodynamics.
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