Project Description:

Energy is the backbone of modern civilization, fueling everything from our daily conveniences to our economic engines. However, the world is at a critical juncture toward issues related to energy, with key strategies being developed such as enhancing energy efficiency, electrifying industrial and domestic processes, advancing carbon capture technologies, and developing sustainable fuels.

Central to these strategies is heterogeneous catalysis—a powerful enabler of the technological breakthroughs required for energy sustainability. We are studying how catalysis is driving advancements in bio-based chemicals, more cost-effective chemical processes, and carbon-neutral fuel synthesis, among other areas.

Requirements:

Basic courses in Chemical Engineering, in particular Chemical Reaction Engineering.

Project Description:

Mathematical optimization has wide applications in real-world decision-making problems such as aircraft crew scheduling, smart grid operation, and health care. One of the primary barriers to deploying optimization models in practice is the challenge of helping practitioners understand and interpret such models.

We are developing a natural language-based system, OptiChat, for analyzing (mixed-integer) linear programs. It is an agent-based autonomous system that coordinates the user, the optimization model, the optimization solver, and the LLM. The non-expert user is interested in understanding the optimization model written in an algebraic modeling language that has symbolic expressions of the decision variables, the input parameters, the constraints, and the objective.

We expect OptiChat to be able to provide high-level model descriptions, diagnose and resolve infeasibility for infeasible problems, explain why a solution is optimal, and answer any interactive questions of the user.

Requirements:

Skills needed: A good understanding of optimization (see my ongoing classhttps://canli1.github.io/courses). Prompt engineering. Use the API of GPT-4. Fine-tuning LLM. RAG

Project Description:

This project will consider the formulation and solution of engineering applications (chemical superstructure optimization, optimal power flow) using quantum-enhanced methods. We will learn, through libraries in Python and Julia, how to address these problems and efficiently solve them.

Requirements:

Required: Programming background (Python) and linear algebra.
Preferable: Linear, nonlinear, and/or integer programming experience, programming background (Julia)
No previous experience in quantum computing required.

Project Description:

Medium Density Fiber board is made using Urea-Formaldehyde based resin as a binder. It’s a very versatile material, but TOXIC! Roughly 50000 wood product manufacturing workers face occupational exposure to CARCINOGENIC formaldehyde, in US. Epidemiological studies show link between Nasopharynx cancer and occupational exposure to formaldehyde.

A solution to both challenges lies in using Catalytic Depolymerization to replace the existing Kraft Process for Pulp production, and at the same time, generating a ‘green binder’… from WOOD... more precisely, LIGNIN. Lignin is a highly heterogenous naturally occurring polymer, that is very difficult to break down into smaller components, due to strong C-O-C and C-C bonds, that link phenyl-propane monomers. Selective cleavage of these bonds needs to be performed using catalytic path, to obtain useful products. Methanol cleaves C-O-C linkages through a nucleophilic mechanism and serves as a hydrogen source for producing monomeric phenols by hydrogenolysis of the polymer fragments.

The project objectives are:
- Poplar and Birch wood were procured, processed and treated using Soxhlet Extraction for removal of waxes, fats and resins.
- Nickel / Activated Carbon catalyst was prepared by incipient wetness impregnation method.
- Catalyst samples were characterized using BET Surface area analysis to obtain catalyst surface area, Grazing Incident X-Ray Diffraction to obtain surface structure of the catalyst, and imaging of the catalyst was done using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope.
- Depolymerization reactions in a 100, 600 mL stainless steel Parr reactors, as well as a 20-liter high pressure Parr reactor.

The student will participate in experimental work around all of the objectives .

Requirements:

Chemical Reaction Engineering, Separations Process Engineering, Sustainability, Product and Process Design.

Trained in lab experimental research, analytical instrumentation, data analysis and experimental design