News

Graduate student Amanda Paine won first place in a Society of Plastics Engineers’ (SPE) poster competition recently held in Houston, Texas.

The competition was part of SPE’s 2015 International Polyolefins Conference. Paine’s winning poster, entitled “Oxygen Scavenging Polymers for Barrier Applications,” showcases her work in improving oxygen barrier properties in polymer packaging. Her research focuses on improving the shelf lives of foods and beverages by incorporating oxygen scavenging polymers into packaging materials. [Read more…] about Amanda Paine Wins Society of Plastics Engineers Poster Competition

Jovan Kamcev, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and teaching assistant, recently won first place in an advanced membrane technology poster competition hosted in Siracusa, Sicily, Italy by the Engineering Conferences International (ECI) program.

Approximately forty students from twenty countries participated in the competition. Kamcev’s winning poster, entitled “Predicting Ion Sorption and Transport in Ion-Exchange Membranes” describes part of his research on the understanding of ion and water transport across charged polymers, and the development of structure/property rules that guide the preparation of high performance membranes for water purification and energy generation applications.

“One of the greatest challenges facing our society is obtaining adequate and sustainable supplies of energy and water. Membrane technologies provide energy-efficient ways to help mitigate some of these issues,” said Kamcev.

Kamcev is supervised by Professor Benny Freeman, the Richard B. Curran Centennial Chair in Engineering, and Professor Donald Paul, the Ernest Cockrell Sr. Chair in Engineering.

Jovan is a member of the Center for Layered Polymeric Systems (CLiPS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center including UT Austin and led by Case Western University, Cleveland, Ohio.

 

Congratulations to Zhengwang for receiving a poster award at ICOM 2014.  The title of her poster presentation was “Profiling Fouling Propensity in Constant Permeate Flux Crossflow Microfiltration Based on Membrane-Model Foulant Interaction”.  The award recognizes excellent poster presentations at the 10th International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes. There were 30 presenters awarded out of more than 500 poster presentations.

Qiang Liu has been named TA of the Year for his work on CHE 317 in 2013 and is being awarded the Paige H. and J. Jeff Weidner Endowed Presidential Fellowship in Chemical Engineering.

This is what some of Qiang’s students had to say about him:

“The TA was amazing. He went out of his way to make sure our assignments were returned back to us on time, and he made sure that we were well prepared for class. He explained the concepts clearly, and was very receptive to questions even when a student was asking about something that was previously explained.” 
  [Read more…] about Qiang Liu was named the Teaching Assistant of the Year in Chemical Engineering Department

Congratulations to Kevin Stevens  and Zhengwang He for both winning the poster competitions at NAMS 2014.  Kevin received the third place in the membrane synthesis category, and Zhengwang received the first place in the membrane process category.