Faculty News

Faculty News and Awards

Carl Knopf (PI) and Kerry Dooley (co-PI) have received funding from the National Science Foundation for their proposal, "Integrating a Cogeneration Facility into Engineering Education." Funding will be for one year (2006-07) in the amount of $126,000. Kevin Kelly, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, will serve as co-PI as well.

Dooley also served as a co-PI on a NASA subcontract, "Applied Polymer Technology Extension Cooperative," ($99,800) for the year 2005-06. Paul Russo served as PI for the project with David Spivak and Leslie Butler as co-PIs, all of whom are faculty members in the Department of Chemistry.

Elizabeth Podlaha is a recipient of the 2006 Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award. This award recognizes faculty members for outstanding teaching, research, and/or service. It consists of a one-time cash award of $1,000, funded by the LSU Alumni Association. Podlaha, along with other faculty award winners, will be honored by the University at a reception on May 9 at the Lod Cook Alumni Center.

Jerry Spivey received the following grants this academic year:

• a grant in the amount of $622,000 funded by Albemarle Corporation and the LSU Board of Regents to support research in the department on the oligomerization of methane to gasoline-range liquids. Spivey will work with Albemarle scientists to develop catalysts that can activate methane and selectively produce these compounds.

• a small grant in the amount of $45,000 from the Department of Energy to continue work on the development of metal foams as catalyst supports for fuel processors. This project continues work he began earlier with colleagues, George Roberts (North Carolina State University) and Jim Goodwin (Clemson University) on these same materials.

• an award to LSU, Hampton University, and Clemson University for the development of attrition-resistant Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. The $200,000 award is for three years and will focus on iron-based catalysts to convert coal-derived syngas to liquid fuels. Spivey will serve as a PI along with Adeyinka Adeyega (Hampton) and Jim Goodwin (Clemson).

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Kerry Dooley has been involved in the following presentations and proceedings in the past year:

• K.M. Dooley (speaker), A.K. Bhat, A.D. Roy and C.P. Plaisance, "Ketones from Acid/Aldehyde Condensation Using Metal/CeO2 Catalysts," 19th North American Meetings, Catalysis Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2005.

• J.A. Muss, R.C. Farmer, R.W. Pike (speaker), C.E. O'Quin and K.M. Dooley, "Decomposition Kinetics for Hydrogen Peroxide," JANNAF 40th CS/28APS/22nd PSHS/4th MMS Joint Meeting, Charleston, South Carolina, 2005.

• K.M. Dooley (speaker), "Craft for Macromolecular Creativity - IGERT at LSU," NSF Southeast IGERT Conference, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2005.

• K.M. Dooley (speaker), H.J. Toups and D.B. Mowrey, "Better Integration of Process Design/Control Principles in Engineering Labs," 2005 AIChE Annual Meetings, Cincinnati, Ohio.

• A.G. Bussard (presenter) and K.M. Dooley, "Heterogeneous catalyzed polymer hydrogenation in an oscillating microreactor," 2006 ACS Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.

Carl Knopf and Yogesh Waghmare (Ph.D. student under his direction) published two papers in the March 2006 issue of AIChE Journal and presented two papers at the AIChE meeting in Orlando, Florida in April 2006.

Elizabeth Podlaha and members of her research team have co-authored a book chapter in the newly released, "Nanomaterials Handbook" (edited by Yury Gogotsi). The chapter is entitled, "Electrochemical Deposition of Nanostructured Metals." Her co-authors include current Ph.D. students-Yutong Li, Alonso Lozano Morales, Despina Davis; former students-Qiang Huang (Ph.D., 2004), Amrit Panda (Ph.D., 2003), and Zhanhu Guo (Ph.D., 2005); and a former post-doctoral assistant, Jianqi Zhang.

Kalliat Valsaraj was an invited speaker at the University of California, Irvine, NSF Environmental Molecular Sciences Institute (EMSI) on atmospheric research in January 2006. His presentation was entitled, "The interactions of gas-phase organic species at the environmental air-water interface."

Professors Co-author Paper on Hurricane Katrina Floodwaters

Louis Thibodeaux and Kalliat Valsaraj were co-authors of an article titled, "Chemical and Microbiological Parameters in New Orleans Floodwater Following Hurricane Katrina." The article was published in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) premier journal Environmental Science and Technology on chemistry and chemodynamics of New Orleans floodwaters.

Within one week of Hurricane Katrina, a team of LSU researchers in the Departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering were sampling and testing the so-called "toxic soup" waters as seen on national television. In the final analysis the waters were relatively clean chemically with only one metal, Pb, indicating slightly elevated levels. The water sampling also captured the floating oil sheen, which was shown in many live televised images.

Expected to contain elevated benzene and ethylbenzene concentrations because of its suspected gasoline source, the levels were in fact very low. Chemodynamic model calculations indicate that the vaporization half-life of these constituents is of the order of 10 mmoles or less.

In the final analysis the waters were not unlike the chemistry observed in typical storm waters. It was slightly yellow in color with elevated salt content. However, the elevated pathogens counted made it non potable and unsafe for human contact.

The full article, which was one of the most accessed in 2005 on ACS's website, can be found on the Internet at:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/esthag/asap/pdf/es0518631.pdf.

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