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Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon to be Inducted into CASE

Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon
Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon will be inducted into the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering on May 27.

Dr. Jeffrey R. McCutcheon, Professor and Executive Director, Fraunhofer USA Center for Energy Innovation; Al Geib Professor of Environmental Engineering Research and Education, UConn School of Engineering has been announced as an inductee in the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) for 2021.

Dr. McCutcheon joined UConn in 2008, after receiving his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2007. He was selected to receive the Dupont Young Professor award in 2013, one of only 14 professors worldwide to receive the honor. In 2019, as an internationally recognized expert in membrane technologies for sustainable water and energy production, Dr. McCutcheon was chosen to lead UConn’s participation in the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), a research consortium awarded a five-year, $100-million Energy-Water Desalination Hub to address water security issues in the United States.

In 2020, McCutcheon lead a team developing a prototype of an emergency ventilator that could be produced by Connecticut manufacturers to help ease anticipated shortage of the devices as the novel coronavirus continued to spread across the state.

Election to the Academy is based on the applicant’s scientific and engineering distinctions, achieved through significant contributions in the form of publications, patents, outstanding leadership, and other factors.

New inductees are scheduled to be honored at the Academy’s 46th Annual Meeting that will be held virtually on May 27, 2021

Yanliu Dang Completes Degree in Materials Science

Dr. Yanliu Dang
Dr. Yanliu Dang

While completing her Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering & Technology at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Yanliu Dang discovered her research area of interest, materials and catalysis. When searching for doctoral programs, she decided to come to the US in order to learn about American culture and explore research opportunities not available in China. She singled out UConn to study under the guides of one of the world’s leaders in catalysis, Prof. Steven Suib.

Her studies in catalysis at UConn led to her dissertation defense, “Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Metal Oxide/Phosphide-Based Catalysts for Energy Applications”

In addition to catalysis, Yanliu stated that she gained significant knowledge in microscopy and material characterization. She was very grateful to have the opportunity to work on advanced instruments at UConn: Titan Themis TEM, Dual Beam FIB, and XPS to study materials and catalytic mechanisms.

Yanliu’s paper, Constructing Bifunctional 3D Holey and Ultrathin CoP Nanosheets for Efficient Overall Water Splitting, was published in July 25, 2019. Her paper, Partial Reduction of Ruthenium Oxide as Efficient and pH-Universal Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution, is currently under review. Her third paper, Self-standing Ruthenium Oxide Nanocomposite for Regenerable Electrocatalyst in Seawater Splitting, is around the corner.

New Site Launched

We are proud to announce the launch of our new website. Built on the the university Aurora service, this new version of our site sports a modern look, faster loading times, and works on all mobile and tablet devices.

Members of Dr. Kasi’s Group Nominated for Best Poster at ACS Fall Meeting

Samiksha Vaidya
Samiksha Vaidya with her poster at the ACS Fall Meeting

Ian Martin
Ian Martin with his poster at the ACS Fall Meeting

Ian J. Martin and Samiksha Vaidya of Dr. Rajeswari Kasi’s research group recently attended the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall 2019 National Meeting & Exposition in San Diego, CA and presented posters entitled “Templated perylene diimide-polydiacetylene supramolecular structures with unique chromatic transitions” and “Molecular engineering of dye incorporated liquid-crystalline polymers with different architectures”, respectively. Each of their presentations were highlighted as distinguished poster nominees in the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) division.

Dr. Luyi Sun Elected as Member of CASE

Dr. Steven Suib and Dr. Luyi Sun
IMS Director Dr. Steven Suib congratulates Dr. Luyi Sun on his election as a member of CASE

Dr. Luyi Sun, Director of the IMS Polymer Program and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was inducted into the academy at its 44th Annual Meeting in May 2019

Election to CASE is made on the basis of scientific and engineering distinction achieved through significant contributions in theory or applications, as demonstrated by original published books and papers, patents, the pioneering of new and developing fields and innovative products, outstanding leadership of nationally recognized technical teams, and external professional awards in recognition of scientific and engineering excellence.

Dr. Sun’s publication credits include such distinguished journals as Scientific Reports, Nature Communications, Science, and Science Advances, as well as holding several patents related to his research. His work has been featured in articles at Smithsonian.com, R&D Magazine, and Plastics Technology among other publications. Dr. Sun also serves as advisor to the UConn student chapter of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).

IMS Director Dr. Steven L. Suib, also a CASE member elected in 2012, congratulated Dr. Sun on his membership and accomplishments at a celebration at IMS.

Intriguing Flexible Devices Based On Mechanoluminescence

Luminescence
Photo: Pixabay

Mechanoluminescence (ML), also called triboluminescence (TL), refers to the phenomenon/process that materials could emit light under mechanical stimuli, e.g., friction, stretch, compression, impact, etc. The ML materials could utilize the ubiquitous mechanical energy in daily life to generate light emissions, avoiding the requirement of an artificial photon- or electron-excitation source as that in photoluminescence (PL) or electroluminescence (EL). Therefore, ML materials show great advantages in energy saving and environmental protection.

For practical applications, ML crystals or powders are required to composite with bulk matrices to generate structural non-destructive ML. Among the fabricated ML composites, elastomer-based ones have attracted increasing attention owing to the rising requirement of incorporating stress sensing characteristic into flexible/wearable devices. The present ML elastomer composites mainly employ transition metal ion doped sulfides (TM-sulfides) as the luminescent components because of their intense ML intensity. However, the TM-sulfides usually have poor chemical stability and may cause severe environmental pollution as well as lack of rich emission color.

Theoretically, rare earth doped oxides (RE-oxides) are promising alternatives because of their high chemical stability, nontoxicity, and abundant energy levels. It is essential to develop efficient and ideally multicolored ML of RE-oxide based elastomer composites, so that flexible devices may possess remarkable and environmentally friendly mechanical responsive optical characteristics.  Read the full story at Science Trends.

 

Polymer Program Seminar Series 2/9/2018

Dr. Igor L. Medintz
Dr. Igor L. Medintz, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

February 9, 2018
11.00am in  IMS 20

Enhancing Enzymatic Activity with Nanoparticle Scaffolds – Towards Cell Free Biocatalysis

Igor L. Medintz
Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Washington D.C.  U.S.A.
(Igor.medintz@nrl.navy.mil)

ABSTRACT
Enzymes and especially multienzyme pathways are of tremendous interest for the production of industrial chemicals and in the development of metabolic sensors. One primary focus of synthetic biology is to design enzymatic production capabilities in a “plug and play” format within cellular systems.  Living cellular systems, however, can suffer from toxicity, competing pathways and sometimes an inability to mix enzymes from different species.  Application of enzymes for industrial catalysis is often achieved by immobilization on a surface since this often provides stability and facilitates purification and reuse of the enzymes from the reaction mixture. Unfortunately, immobilization of enzymes on large planar surfaces often results in loss of enzymatic activity.  We seek to create cell-free enzyme systems that can circumvent these issues in a “plug and play” format where enzymes are assembled on nanoparticle surfaces but still overcome diffusion and stability issues. We, and others, have demonstrated that immobilization of enzymes or substrate on nanoparticles often results in enhanced enzymatic activity relative to the free enzyme in solution.  Mechanistic studies of this phenomena will be presented starting with substrate on nanoparticles and then progressing to the converse approach. Examples of multienzyme cascades assembled on nanoparticles that appear to access substrate channeling phenomena will also be presented.  The challenges of characterizing and describing these complex organic/inorganic supramacromolecular systems will also be discussed in the context of further studies moving forward.

Host: Elena Dormidontova (elena@uconn.edu) and Mu-Ping Nieh (mu-ping.nieh@uconn.edu)