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Dr. Rohit Ramachandran was awarded a Rutgers Research Council grant

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran was awarded a Rutgers Research Council grant for his work on the Quantitative Analysis of the Effect of Granule Properties on Tablets.

Prof. Stavroula Sofou CBE Faculty awarded a Board of Trustees Research Fellowship

Professor Stavroula Sofou has been awarded a Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence and a Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. These awards are bestowed in recognition of outstanding scholarly and teaching accomplishments as documented in the evaluation that has led to Dr Sofou’s recent promotion to Associate Professor with tenure.

2013 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Conference

The Rutgers University chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) hosted the 2013 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Conference on April 5th and 6th. The location of the conference was Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ and The Heldrich, New Brunswick, NJ.

The two day Conference featured a plant tour at Bristol-Myers Squibb, a Chem-E Jeopardy event, a Research Paper Competition, a Research Poster Competition, and the Chem-E-Car Competition. Workshops were given by representatives from Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont, Rutgers Alumni, and AIChE Young Professionals. Topics included Chemical Engineering in crystallization, Six Sigma, and steel.

Chem-E Jeopardy
Jeopardy! styled competition where students compete for the top score and a qualification spot at the National Conference this fall. Results:
1. West Point
2. Rutgers University (Sammy Gulrajani (CBE ’13), Paul Ludford (CBE ’13), Matt Young (CBE ’13), and Vetri Velan (CBE ’14))
3. University at Buffalo

Research Paper Competition
Students present their published paper in a 15 minute + 5 min Q&A format. Winners are given an award and cash prize. Additionally winners are invited to compete on the National level. Results:
1. Kirsten Parratt – Princeton University
2. Alice Stanton – Princeton University
3. Ashley Kaminski – Lafayette College
One Rutgers student participated in the Poster Competition: Marco Armenante (CBE ’14)

Research Poster Competition
Students present their research paper in a 5 min poster format. Winners are given an award. Results:
1. Mark McCormick – United States Military Academy
2. Nicholas Patterson – Stony Brook University
3. Mikel Dermer – University of Virginia
Two Rutgers students participated in the Poster Competition: Sammy Gulrajani (CBE ’13) and John Santiago (CBE ’13)

Chem-E-Car Competition
Students teams compete in a distance competition involving small, shoe-boxed sized “Chem-E-Cars” powered by alternative energies. Each car must start and stop on a chemical reaction. The teams are told the distance the car must travel only an hour before the competition. Additionally, a variable weight is placed on the car, also given an hour before the competition. The cars must stop on the line. Winners are given an award and cash prize. Results:
1. Rutgers University – Car name: “Sir Winski” (Team: Captain Gary Spingarn (CBE ’13), Matthew Cerwinski (CBE ’13), Maya Gelman (CBE ’14), Ingrid Joylyn Paredes (CBE ’15)).
2. Virginia Polytechnic
3. City College of New York
4. University of Maryland
5. Stony Brook
This is the first time ever the Rutgers University Chem-E-Car Team has placed first in the Regional Chem-E-Car Competition.

Corporate sponsors include: Jannsen, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Financial support was also provided by the School of Engineering, the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering department, CBE alumni, and the Rutgers University Alumni Association.

Over 300 students and professionals took part in the two-day conference. In attendance were over 270 students from 25 schools within the Mid-Atlantc Region. Schools from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia were present. Guest speaker and Rutgers alum Dr. Kiernan LaMarche (BMS) closed spoke at the closing ceremony.

RU AIChE Advisor: Dr. Tomassone

RU AIChE Planning Committee:
Conference Chair – Sumit Sikka (CBE ’13)
Logistics Chair – Anurag Sakhamuri (CBE ’13)
Fundraising Chair – Agnesa Redere (CBE ’14)
Finance Chair – Victor Kabala (CBE ’14)
Activity Chair – Laura Norkute (CBE ’13)

Over twenty volunteers participated in the event.

Professor Ioannis (Yannis) Androulakis CBE Faculty wins 2013 Outstanding Engineering Faculty Award

Professor Ioannis (Yannis) Androulakis is the recipient of 2013 Outstanding Engineering Faculty Award. This award is an important opportunity for our Engineering community to recognize the special achievements and contributions of its dedicated faculty members. Yannis have been recognized for his contributions. The Engineering Award Ceremony and reception at 4 PM immediately following the April 5th faculty meeting so that SoE colleagues and other members of the Engineering community have the opportunity to recognize Yannis. Congratulations to Yannis.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran has received funding from Syngenta, UK

This $100,000 award will focus on developing mechanistic models to understand the agglomeration behavior in agitated dryers

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran has received funding from the Rutgers Catalyst Consortium

This 1 year $40,000 award will focus on developing PAT tools for a continuous granulation process to better monitor key output variables in real-time for control and optimization

Professor Alex Neimark and CBE alumni Dr. John Landers are the authors of a US Patent

“Bioactive Carbon Nanotube - Agarose Composites for Neural Engineering” published on Sept. 20, 2012. This discovery made in collaboration with Drs. Joachim Kohn and Dan Landers from the Rutgers Center of Biomaterials opens up new prospects in developing advanced implantable electrodes for neural stimulation and recording

Professor Tomassone is the principal investigator of an NSF award totaling $398,000. ( CoPI: Prof. Moghe)

The project is entitled "Engineered Anisotropic Biphasic Nanoparticles for Bio-Therapeutic and Pharmaceutical Technologies" and focuses on a novel nanomanufacturing paradigm for the synthesis of anisotropic micro- and nanoparticles, termed Janus particles. The key goal of this work is to create novel biodegradable and biocompatible anisotropic biphasic nano- particles (ABNPs) for large scale production, capable of dual compartmentalization and incorporation of two or more therapeutic drugs with staggered release profiles. This project will lead to significant advances in pharmaceutics, biomedicine, materials engineering and dispersion stabilization.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran is invited to be a member of the Scientific Committee

of the 5th International Conference on Population Balance Modeling in September 11-13, 2013.

Prof. Futran is the co-principal investigator of an award totaling $800,000.

The project titled Developing and Implementing Non-Destructive Characterization and Assessment of Pharmaceutical Oral Dosages in Continuous Manufacturing Processes is being supported by the National Science Foundation

Prof. Sofou is the principal investigator of an award totaling $390,000.

Her project titled Design of Multifunctional Doubly-Fusogenic Liposomes to Deliver Therapeutics and Diagnostics is being supported by the National Science Foundation

Professor Alex Neimark received an NSF award of $383,803

for a three year NSF CBET grant ""Mesoscale modeling of self-assembly and transport in polymer electrolyte membranes”. The objective of this project is to design novel molecular simulation tools capable of predicting structural and transport properties of polyelectrolyte membranes (PEM). PEM is one of the critical and most expensive components of the fuel cells, which play the central role in the sustainable hydrogen-based energy technologies. The results of this research will have a significant interdisciplinary impact, since it addresses currently unresolved topical problems that are common across different self-assembly and transport phenomena in synthetic and biological polyelectrolyte materials, and it focuses on developing original modeling tools that can be further adapted and modified for simulation and optimization of biomedical systems and biomedical technologies, involving DNA, proteins, and physiological membranes.

Professors Prabhas Moghe, Charles Roth receive NIH grant

Professors Prabhas Moghe, Charles Roth and Richard Riman (MSE) were recently awarded a two year, $420,127 R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health entitled "Albumin-Encapsulated Rare Earth Nanoprobes for Multifunctional Tissue Imaging." The goal of this project is to exploit the previously untapped tissue transparency in the short wave infrared for in vivo optical imaging of disease states, including tumor metastasis.

Professor Alex Neimark recieves DURIP grant

of $99,924.00 from DoD to establish a computer laboratory for multi-scale simulations of novel nanomaterials

Rutgers CBE and Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), a software and consultancy services provider have embarked on an educational collaboration

to introduce solids processing modeling tools and technologies to the undergraduate and graduate student population. Students will be able to use these tools for research and coursework and learn about model-based design, control and optimization of solids processes. This effort was led by Profs. Ramachandran, Ierapetritou and Futran.

Professor Glasser invited to be a Consulting Editor for the AIChE Journal

Professor Benjamin Glasser has been invited to be a Consulting Editor for the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Journal. Consulting Editors serve in an advisory capacity to advance the Journal by providing input on strategic directions and initiatives. An additional responsibility of a Consulting Editor is to be an arbiter for difficult papers
and reviewers. The AIChE Journal is one of the premier archived journals for
the Chemical Engineering profession. More information on the AIChE Journal can
be found at:www.aiche.org/aichejournal/

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran received a NIPTE Young Investigator Award for his proposed work on mechanistic modeling and validation of wet granulation processes.

This 1 year, $55,000 award will enable Dr. Ramachandran to develop multi-scale granulation process models which can lead to enhanced understanding and operation of industrial pharmaceutical granulation processes. NIPTE (National Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology and Education) is an independent non-profit organization that has received an U01 research grant from the FDA to conduct cooperative research in the area of Critical Path Manufacturing Science.

The International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE) has elected Professor Prabhas Moghe as a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE)

Professor Moghe was cited for his pioneering research and educational leadership in advanced materials biology with applications to biotechnology and biomedicine. The induction ceremony took place on June 1, 2012 at the Ninth World Biomaterials Congress held in Chengdu, China. There are only 216 fellows worldwide recognized to date with this honor out of 26,000 members belonging to IUSBSE. Dr. Moghe, Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University, is one of 7 new Fellows elected from the U.S. whose accomplishments were prominently recognized at the Congress in China.

Prof. Alkis Constantinides

was chosen by the graduating senior class to receive the 2012 Teaching Excellence Award

Professors Moghe of Biomedical Engineering & Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

and Sinko of Pharmaceutics were publicly honored for their research accomplishments at the half-time ceremony during a Rutgers football game of October 2011

Professor Alex Neimark has been elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Dr. Neimark has been elected a Fellow of the AIChE. He is the first member of the Rutgers Faculty to get this honor. Please join Chemical Engineering in congratulating him.

Dr. Sofou awarded the Teaching Excellency Award on behalf the EGC

Adhaar Sharma, a member of the Engineering Governing Council and also a student of Dr. Sofou last semester in Transport Phenomenon I, was bestowed the honor of informing Dr. Sofou was chosen to receive the annual Teaching Excellency Award. Dr. Sofou was one of the top 5 candidates nominated by the Chemical Engineering Undergraduates and received the most votes by the ChemE student body during our EGC elections. The award was presented at the annual EGC Leadership Conference, held on Sunday, April 29th at the Brower Commons on College Ave Campus.

Dr. Asefa was awarded one of four Board of Trustees Research Fellowships

for Scholarly Excellence, which will be awarded by Dr. McCormick on May 2nd. Please join the department in congratulating him for this honor.

Prof. Ierapatritou Received NSF Grant from the Chemical, Environmental, Bioengineering and Transport Systems (CBET) at NSF

Prof. Ierapetritou is awarded a new NSF Grant for $343K from NSF's Process Reaction Engineering Program of the Chemical, Environmental, Bioengineering and Transport Systems (CBET) at NSF, 2011 – 2014, to to develop an integrated approach to process scheduling and process control with the goal of more efficient utilization of resources in the face of disturbances..

American Institute of Chemical Engineers names Charles A. Clerecuzio of BARD Holding, Inc. as the 2012 Chemical Engineer of the Year –

PHILADELPHIA, PA - BARD Holding, Inc. is pleased to announce that its Chief Operating Officer Charles A. Clerecuzio, P.E., CPIP, has been selected as the 2012 Chemical Engineer of the Year for Delaware Valley by The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Clerecuzio will be recognized at the AIChE’s CEO Night on March 29, 2012 at the Union League of Philadelphia. This honor is awarded annually in recognition of career achievements in the field of chemical engineering by an active participant in AIChE.
Since fall of 2011, Clerecuzio has led the operations and engineering for BARD Holding, a United States corporation focused on commercial-scale growth and distribution of algae. Prior to joining BARD, Clerecuzio was Senior Consultant and Vice President, PharmBio & Chemicals for AMEC, a FTSE 100 global engineering and consultancy company. His extensive leadership experience in the development and commercialization of first-of-a-kind technologies, strategic planning, process deployment and operations management in biofuels, bio-based chemicals, pharmaceutical, consumer products and chemicals industries is of great benefit to BARD.
“Charles brings a stellar professional background in this highly specialized and rapidly emerging market,” stated BARD Holding Founder and CEO Surajit Khanna. “His high level of expertise in nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, engineering, construction and biofuels lends itself perfectly to the rapid growth and vision of BARD. We are proud of his recognition by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers."
Clerecuzio holds a BA in Zoology and MS in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University and an MBA in Finance and Operations Management from the Stern School of NYU. Clerecuzio is one of the first CPIPs (Certified Pharmaceutical Industry Professional) certified globally. He is a member of the Industrial Advisory Board for Chemical Engineering for Rutgers University, Rowan University and the University of Akron, and is Past Chair of the Delaware Valley Section of AIChE and Past President of the Delaware Valley Chapter for ISPE. Clerecuzio has chaired the University Relations Committee, CPIP Eligibility Committee and served on the Biotech Community of Practice Steering Committee.
About BARD Holding: BARD is a U.S. based commercial-scale algae production company. In 2007, BARD entered the market with a focus on biodiesel production utilizing traditional feedstocks such as soybeans, palm, Jatropha and algae. BARD successfully modified its patent-pending microalgae cultivation technologies to provide natural, sustainable sources for a broad range of consumer products in the biofuel, animal feed, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and biochemical industries. BARD was awarded the SmartCEO – Emerging Technology award and was recently nominated as "CleanTech Company of the Year” for 2011 Enterprise Awards by Pennsylvania’s PACT (Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies.) BARD Holding maintains headquarters outside of Philadelphia with offices in New York, Houston, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London and Berlin, Germany. For more information please visit www.bardholding.com.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran Received a Grant from the Czech-American S&T Cooperation –

Program KONTAKT II (LH) Dr. Ramachandran (Co-PI) and his international collaborator Prof. Frantisek Stepanek (PI) from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague was awarded this 4 year grant ($142,700) for their proposed work on Multi-scale Design and Analysis of Granulation Processes. This grant facilitates scholarly exchange between the PIs and students from the two Institutions to further develop multi-scale experimental and computational strategies to better understand the dynamics of granulation processes.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran Received a Grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for his Proposed Work on Experimental validation of crystallization processes

BMS has awarded Dr. Ramachandran a research grant of $16,000 to develop and experimentally validate multi-dimensional models of pharmaceutical crystallization processes to better design and optimize batch crystallization processes.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran Received a Faculty Grant from Rutgers for his Proposed Work on Multi-scale modeling of crystallization processes

Rutgers University has awarded Dr. Ramachandran an internal research grant of $12,500 for his project on the development of multi-scale and multi-dimensional models of pharmaceutical crystallization processes to better understand the dynamics of these crystallization processes.

Prof. Tewodros (Teddy) Asefa Received a Faculty Grant from Rutgers for his Proposed Work on Nanocatalysts for Renewable Energy

Rutgers University has awarded Prof. Asefa an internal research grant of $19,000 for his project on the development of novel and efficient nanostructured catalytic systems potentially capable of generating hydrogen from water and reducing the greenhouse gas CO2 into liquid synthetic fuels.

Prof. Tewodros (Teddy) Asefa Received NSF Grant from the Chemical, Environmental, Bioengineering and Transport Systems (CBET) at NSF

Prof. Asefa is awarded a new NSF Grant for $325K from NSF's Environmental Health and Safety of Nanotechnology (NanoEHS) Program of the Chemical, Environmental, Bioengineering and Transport Systems (CBET) at NSF, 2011 – 2014, to develop and investigate new classes of TiO2- and ZnO-based core-shell-shell nanoparticles (particles with one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair in size) capable of efficiently photo-decomposing or converting in the presence of sunlight common organic pollutants in the environment and in waste water into harmless or even useful substances such as CO2 and H2O.

Professor Ierapetritou receives the Outstanding Faculty Award

Professor Ierapetritou have been selected as a recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Faculty Award. This award recognizes SOE faculty for excellence in research, teaching and service. The formal recognition will be conferred at the Medal of Excellence dinner on February 24.

Sofou Receives Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society

Professor Stavroula Sofou received a 4-year, $720,000 Research Scholar Grant from the American Cancer Society to design and evaluate a targeted liposomal antivascular alpha-particle therapeutic approach for the treatment of cancer.  Professor Martin Yarmush serves as a consultant on this project, and the Center for Innovative Ventures of Emerging Technologies (CIVET) will assist the team in translating their work to the industrial and clinical arenas.

1st Place 2011 AIChE College Bowl

The Department is proud to congratulate our team Greg Heden, David Park and Emanuel Scoullos and faculty advisor Prof. Tomassone. They won first place against Princeton, NJIT and Stevens at the October meeting. Well done!

Professor Moghe received a $180K award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundationd

This award will support early proof of concept studies for bioactive polymers to treat atherosclerotic lesions.  It will also establish a translational research team and strategic business planing toward the design of bioactive implantable stents for treatment of cardiovascular disease.

Teddy Asefa was Recognized with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Special Creativity Award

Teddy Asefa is honored with the NSF Special Creativity Award from the Division of Materials Research of National Science Foundation (NSF) for his work related to the development of novel nanoceramic materials. The Special Creativity Award is given only for those scientists who have a proven history of producing excellent research results and is provided as a supplemental grant to those outstanding scientists already conducting NSF-funded research. This award is initiated by program officers at NSF and is offered to the most creative investigators as an opportunity to attack adventurous, “high-risk” opportunities in the same general research area, but not necessarily covered by the original/current proposal. This award comes with an additional unrestricted grant of $160,000, which would allow Teddy to develop novel nanomaterials and nancocatalysts for energy applications, including nanocatalysts for conversion of CO2 into liquid fuels. Teddy was also recently recognized from the same program with an American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellowship.

Professor Alex Neimark received an NSF award of $300,000

for a three year GOALI grant "Multiscale Modeling of Adsorption Equilibrium and Dynamics in Polymer Chromatography".The objective of this project to design novel molecular simulation tools capable of predicting equilibrium partitioning and dynamics of chain molecules on nanoporous substrates and to advance fundamental understanding of the physico-chemical mechanisms of retention in polymer chromatography. The results of this research will have a significant transformative interdisciplinary impact since it addresses currently unresolved topical problems that are common across different chemical and biomedical technologies, and focuses on developing and testing innovative modeling tools that can be adapted and employed for simulation and optimization of various processes which involve polymer and biopolymer adsorption and diffusion on nanostructured substrates and membranes, such DNA sequencing and packaging. The students involved in this work will benefit from industrial training and research facilities of DuPont Experimental Station.

Bottom-up Control of Materials and Morphology for Solar Energy Conversion

Kevin Sivula Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical methods for solar energy conversion have been studied intensely for decades but the current technologies remain far too expensive for the global-scale implementation needed to sustain our current energy use. The next generation of solar energy conversion devices must attain high conversion efficiency and stability while employing only inexpensive materials and processing techniques. Herein two promising systems—semiconducting polymer-based organic photovoltaics and transition metal oxide-based photoelectrochemical water splitting electrodes—are described as promising solutions for solar electricity production and solar energy storage, respectively. It is further shown for both of these systems how material limitations bring a need for precise control of device morphology on a nanometer length scale and how this can be achieved by inexpensive “bottom-up” approaches such as chemical synthesis and self-assembly.

CNRS organizes a three day Workshop on the occasion of awarding a Blaise Pascal International Chair to Professor Alex Neimark.

National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) of France organizes a three day Workshop “Adsorption in Compliant Solids: Theory, Simulation, and Experiments” in Paris, on June 9 - 11, 2011 on the occasion of awarding a Blaise Pascal International Chair to Professor Alex Neimark for his work in collaboration with Professor Alain Fuchs. The program will include a series of invited lectures given by leading experimentalists, theoreticians, and computer scientists, and a poster session organized in an interactive manner. For inquiries and requests for poster presentations, please contact the organizers by March 1, 2011. There will be no conference fee, and a modest financial assistance might be available to support students presenting posters. Registration is mandatory: send an email with your name, affiliation and addresses, and the poster title (if you want to present). The deadline for poster proposals is March 1, 2011; the deadline for registration is May 1, 2011.

Professor Alex Neimark authored the most cited JPCL paper of the year 2010

The paper by Professor Neimark and his French collaborators was listed among the most cited JPCL papers of 2010. In this work "Stress-Based Model for the Breathing of Metal-Organic Frameworks" published J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2010, 1, 445–449, Neimark and co-authors suggested a new thermodynamic model for description of the enigmatic phenomenon of adsorption-induced structural transformations know as "breathing" that was recently discovered in metal-organic frameworks.

Roth Receives DoD Grant

Professor Charles Roth and collaborators at Daemen College and the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research have received a $500,000 contract from the Department of Defense for their proposal entitled "Integrated Proteomic Analysis and siRNA Therapy for Treatment of Heterotopic Ossification."  The goal of this project is to identify molecular triggers for heterotopic ossification (bone growth in soft tissue; a major cause of morbidity following blast injury) using proteomic analysis of clinical samples and to silence the corresponding genes using siRNA delivered locally in a nanoparticle formulation.

Dr. Rohit Ramachandran received a Rutgers research council grant

to support his experimental work on multi-component wet granulation. The work aims to identify experimental sensitivities in the multi-component granulation process, leading to a better understanding in the overall control and operation of the process.

Professor Tewodros Asefa identified as an American Competitiveness & Innovation (ACI) Fellow.

Based on his previous and ongoing accomplishments he has been identified so that he may continue to conduct research that is likely to be transformative and potentially high impact. Also to continue to demonstrate outstanding and often unique broader impascts in terms of diversity. In total, there are 10 nominees this year across the division of Materials Research that are broadlyrepresentative of the division, and are also remarkably diverse from a vareity of considerations (education, departmental affiliation, demographics, year of Ph.D., and research areas.

Prof. Alkis Constantinides received the 2010 Teaching Excellence Award

chosen by the Graduating Senior Class of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.

Professor M. Silvina Tomassone received the Teacher of the Year award

for excellence in teaching during the Spring 2009 and Fall 2010 semesters. This award is coordinated by the Rutgers Engineering Governing Council with voting by the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering undergraduate students.

Prof. Ierapetritou(PI) & Androulakis (co-PI) received a 3 year $330K Award

from the Office on Naval Research to pursue their research activities focused on modeling the complexities of biofuel combustion. Their work aims at the development of novel methods for the analysis, representation and reduction of complex reaction mechanisms and exploring their incorporation in realistic computational fluid dynamics simulations. The work focuses on exploring the potential biofuels as alternative energy sources.

Prof. Ierapetritou wins an NSF Award

($350,000) for her work on integrated production planning and scheduling. The goal of this work is to optimize the production planning operations in large-scale, single-facility production plants considering the details of scheduling decisions. Realistic case studies from petrochemical, fast moving consumer goods manufacturing and chemical companies will be utilized to test and verify the results of the proposed analysis tools. The impact of the proposed work goes beyond specific industrial sector since the general ideas and findings can be applied or extended to different types of production facilities. 25 Jan. 2010 by kirk

1.8 M Grant for Commercializing of Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology

was awarded by NSF to support a vigorous commercialization effort for continuous pharmeceutical manufacturing technology developed by C-SOPS Engineering Research Center. The Effort is lead by Prof. Ierapetritou, Prof. Muzzio, Dr. Erenrich from Rutgers, Prof. Litster from Purdue and Prof. Dave from NJIT are co-PIs in this effort. 16 Apr 2009 by kirk

Ben Glasser Coauthors Perspectives Article in Science

Prof. Ben Glasser had a Perspectives article published in the March 27, 2009 issue of the journal Science. The paper titled, "Producing Transportation Fuels with Less Work" was coauthored with Prof. Diane Hildebrandt, Prof. David Glasser, Dr. Brendon Hausberger and Bilal Patel from the Centre of Material and Process Synthesis at Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa. Their results have also been showcased through a number of news organizations. The article discusses theoretical tools, including new methods developed by the authors, that can identify more efficient ways to run chemical processes and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The authors' new methods enable one to identify and understand the causes and sources of emissions in a process and eliminate unnecessary emissions. Using these methods it is possible to establish theoretical targets of the best performance that is possible for a defined process. These targets provide the designer with a benchmark against which to assess the efficiency of both current and proposed new designs. In the example, illustrated in the article, it is shown how implementing these methods can lead to a new process concept for a plant that produces synthetic liquid fuel from coal. The authors' analysis reveals a somewhat paradoxical route that pushes the initial steps toward carbon dioxide, rather than carbon monoxide, and then feeds carbon dioxide and hydrogen into the hydrocarbon synthesis part of the process. This change leads to a more efficient overall process with a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The process also represents a direct way of using carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce liquid fuels. If hydrogen is produced via wind, or solar energy, this process becomes a method for consuming carbon dioxide and may bypass the difficulties in the direct use of hydrogen as a fuel. These advances developed for coal-to-liquids readily transfer to processes for converting natural gas to liquids, and eventually could be adapted to biomass sources. The weblink http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1168455 provides more information.
9 Dec 2009 by kirk

Awards

Alex Neimark named a 2009 Blaise Pascal International Chair

Prof. Alex Neimark has been awarded a 2009 Blaise Pascal International Chair for his work on statistical mechanics and molecular simulation of adsorption deformation of nanoporous materials. This is the most prestigious French award presented annually by the State and the Region Ile-de France to five internationally acclaimed scholars selected from all disciplines of natural and social sciences. Among past Blaise Pascal award winners are Nobel laureates chemist Ahmed Zeweil, physicist George Smoot, and economist Gérard Debreu. As a Blaise Pascal International Chair, Alex Neimark will conduct research at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris and present ten public lectures in France during his sabbatical leave
18 Sept. 2009 by kirk

Prof. Androulakis wins NIH research award

Prof. Androulakis, in collaboration with Professors Lowry and Calvano (Dept. of Surgery, UMDNJ), received a $132K one year award from the NIH to further advance their collaboration towards the development of a multi-scale model of human inflammation.
11 Mar 2009 by kirk

Alex Neimark wins ARO grant award.
Professor Alex Neimark received a new grant award of $450,000 from the Army Research Office for the three year research project “Molecular Design and Characterization of Novel Nanoporous Adsorbents with Increased Removal Capacity”.

Professor Charles Roth has been awarded a two-year R01 grant from the NIH for his project "Efficient Cellular Delivery of Oligonucleotides". This $687,000 grant was made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and will support mechanistic studies and
preclinical development of a novel platform for oligonucleotide delivery.

U. S. Department of Education Awards $698K Grant
The U. S. Department of Education has awarded a three-year Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) grant to Rutgers University to train and support doctoral students in pharmaceutical engineering. This $698K grant provides fellowship support for doctoral students, and equips experts in the area of pharmaceutical engineering. Professor Yee Chiew (PI), along with Profs Alex Neimark and Nina Shapley (co-PI’s), direct this program.