Energy, Environment and Sustainability

Addressing global challenges of climate change, plastic waste, and developing a circular economy require major innovations in energy and environmental sustainability. The faculty in the Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering are using their unique expertise to address some of these challenges by developing novel materials and new technologies. This includes solid-state and flow battery components: polymer electrolytes and electrodes, as well as photovoltaic semiconductors. In addition to energy storage and conversion, our faculty also work to increase energy efficiency and sustainability of chemical synthesis and of processing pollutants/waste products: plastics, perfluorinated compounds, water, lightweight composites and gypsum stacks. Novel characterization techniques are being developed (in collaboration with national laboratories) and structure-property-processing design rules are being refined (e.g., 3D printing and magnetic fields) to form useful structures and devices.

Focus Areas

Energy generation and storage, electrocatalysis, reaction engineering, magnetic field-assisted separations, membrane separations, recyclable plastics

Faculty

Rufina Alamo, Jamel Ali, Natalie Arnett, Hoyong Chung, Daniel Hallinan Jr., Eric Kalu, Leonardo Liu, Bruce Locke, Hadi Mohammadigoushki, Subramanian Ramakrishnan, Ralm Ricarte and Theo Siegrist