scb group

This Fall, we’ll be presenting our work at PRiME 2016 in October and the AIChE National Meeting in November.  Here are the details:

PRiME 2016

• Y. Liu and S. Calabrese Barton, “Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Substrate Transport on Alpha-Helix Peptide for Multistep Catalysis” Tuesday, 4 October 2016: 09:40, 319 A/B (Hawai’i Convention Center).
• E. Earl and S. Calabrese Barton, “Quantitative Assessment of Channeling Mechanisms in Nanoscale Catalytic Architectures“, Tuesday, 4 October 2016: 12:00,  319 A/B (Hawai’i Convention Center).

AIChE National Meeting

• Kanchan Chavan and Scott Calabrese Barton, “Intermediate Channeling Via Nanoscale Confinement“, Thursday, November 17, 2016: 9:45 AM, Golden Gate 6 (Hilton San Francisco Union Square).

Erica defended her MS Thesis this Friday and is heading to Ann Arbor to work for Detroit Edison.  Look for a paper based on Erica’s work soon.  Congratulations!

Update: Due to weather the meeting is rescheduled to Thursday, March 3, 2016.

On Thursday February 25, Dr. Calabrese Barton will present an invited seminar at the ECS Detroit Local Section Meeting.  The talk, entitled “Low-Cost Oxygen Reduction Catalysts Prepared from Transition Metals by High Pressure Pyrolysis” will follow a reception at 5:30 and dinner at 6:30 on the campus of Lawrence Institute of Technology in Southfield, MI.  A seminar flyer and directions to Lawrence Tech can be found here.

The nonlinear relationship between oxygen concentration and current density prompted Nate to apply a Langmuir isotherm to his analysis. [ref]

Nate will receive his award at the Fall 2015 meeting of the ECS in Phoenix this October. He joins a long line of illustrious awardees, including academic “ancestors” Alan West and John Newman. We are particularly pleased that Nate’s award-winning paper appeared in a JES Focus issue honoring Adam Heller for his lifelong contributions to Electrochemistry.

Nate summarizes his fuel cell design work conducted using his non-PGM cathode model

Congratulations to Nate Leonard, who on Tuesday defended his dissertation titled “Non-Precious Metal Catalysis for Proton-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells”. Nate has done an excellent job on materials characterization and modeling, with two papers published,[1][2] and one more on the way. Great job, Nate!

It was a small but fun dinner in honor of Josh Gallaway who visited MSU for the CHEMS Seminar. Thanks to Josh, Leena, and Hao for traveling so far!

From left: Deboleena Chakraborty, Josh Gallaway, the Old Man, Hao Wen

This week, Nate and Cenk are at the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Fuel Cells. This is a great meeting where researchers from all over the world come together to share research results and insigts in the morning and evenings, and to socialize and get to know each other in the afternoons.  This year, prior to the meeting, Cenk chaired a Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), a forum for early career scientists such as graduate students and postdocs to present new research ideas. Nate gave a talk at the GRS, and Both Cenk and Nate will present posters at the GRC.

Cenk and Nate on the Campus of Bryant University

The meeting is held at Bryant University every other year.  Next meeting is in 2016!

A new paper by Dr. Hanzi Li is now available, describing a new method for preparation of NADH oxidizing electrodes for biosensor, bioreactor, and biofuel cell applications.

Azine catalyst layers deposited either by electroadsorption or by adsorption on electroactivated surfaces are both conformal and active toward NADH oxidation.

Continue reading →

Welcome to Nathaniel Sunderlin and Nam Tran, new members of our research group!

Nate studies Mechanical Engineering here at MSU, and will be graduating with a B.S. this May. In addition to the research, Nathaniel works for the math department as a tutor, and for the art department as a model.

Nam is a Junior in the Chemical Engineering Program here at MSU. He and Nate will be developing synthesis and characterization of non-precious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction in fuel cells.

We wish Nam and Nate the best of luck in their research and are happy they joined our group!