Congratulations to David for defending his thesis on May 2nd! In summer 2017, Dr. Caldwell II will join Material Handling Systems, Inc. located in Louisville, KY.
Archive | Announcement
Pengfei Zhan successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in April 28!
Congratulations to Pengfei for defensing his Ph.D. thesis on “Charge carrier transport in organic semiconductors and solid polymer electrolytes”. In Jun, Pengfei will start a new Research Chemist position at PPG Industries located in Pittsburgh, PA.
Congratulations to Dr. Lu
Group member Keran Lu defended his PhD thesis in Aug 2016. He will start his job at Dow Chemical in September!
New Funding Awarded by Department of Energy to Power Electric Vehicles
Janna Maranas, professor of chemical engineering, has been awarded a $600,000 grant from the Department of Energy for her research proposal “Superionic conduction using ion aggregates.”
The research aims to engineer solid polymeric electrolytes that are capable of replacing organic solvent electrolytes in rechargeable metal-ion batteries, particularly those designed to power electric vehicles.
Replacing organic solvents with polymers will not only increase the safety and efficiency of the batteries, it will also provide an increased energy density allowing vehicles that are currently capable of traveling 100 miles on a charge to travel up to between 400 and 500 miles on the same charge.
Cost reduction and sustainability will also be major considerations.
“Currently, the cost of an electric car is highly correlated with the battery it employs,” said Maranas. “It can generate up to 50 percent of the total vehicle cost.”
For this reason, Maranas’ model will focus on sodium rather than lithium to engineer the polymers. Lithium is a limited resource with reserves located mostly in South America, while sodium is located domestically and is a relatively inexpensive and abundant material.
Work on the project is already underway, and an experimentation phase is scheduled to begin in fall 2015. The project will follow a three-year model concluding in 2018.
First Ever Neutron Scattering Gordon Research Conference!
Janna and Pengfei attended the first ever Neutron Scattering GRC in Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong. Janna gave a invited lecture:”Ion Containing Polymer for Battery Technology”. Pengfei presented a poster “Structure and Dynamics of Organic Semiconductors”.
More information of this conference can be found here.
Janna’s Group Attended APS March Conference in San Antonio, TX
The whole group attended APS March Conference in San Antonio. During the conference, Janna delivered keynote lecture: “Ion Containing Polymer for Battery Technology”. Pengfei, David, and Keran also gave talks.
Old news
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2015 January: Congrats to Bingxin and Shih-Chun for their defence!
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2014 December: Congratulations to Pengfei Zhan on passing his comprehensive. Keep up the good work!
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2014 September: Pengfei started new project Effect of nanofillers on ion conductivity in solid polymer electrolytes. Good luck!
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2014 September: Sneha and Ben passed they comprehensive exam. Congratulations!
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2014 July: Ben presented Poster “The influence of temperature and detergent on polymer exchange rate in PEE-PEO vesicles used for protein incorporation” at the Gordon Research Conference on Polymer Physics.
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2014 June: Congrats to Lalitha for her wonderful defence! Good luck with your new job. We are happy for you, but we will miss you here!
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2014 May: It is already official: promotion to full professor for Janna! Congratulations!
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2013 December: Congratulation to David for passing his Comprehensive!
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2013 September: David was the lead organizer of the research symposium (Celebration Hall, September 17th). Lalitha, Bingxin and Shih-Chung gave the talks: “Nanoparticle filled solid polymer electrolytes for lithium ion batteries”, “Coarse-Grained Simulation of Primary Cell Wall Polysaccharides” and “Nanostructure of primary plant cell wall”, respactively. David also presented the poster “Correlation between degree of sulfonation and polymer-ion dynamics in PEO-based single-ion conductors”.
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2013 August: Congratulations to Pengfei Zhan, Dan Ye, and Ben Schantz for passing Candidacy. Ben has attended to National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering at Oak Ridge and Argonne National Labs.
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2013 July: The XIIIth Cell Wall Meeting, in Nantes France: Bingxin gave a talk on “Coarse-Grained Simulation of Solvated Cellulose Iβ Microfibril”, Shih-Chun gave a talk on “Investigation of structure of Plant cell primary walls” aw well as presented a poster on “Water: The Forgotten Solvent.”
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2013 June: Keran and David presented at the annual DOE Ionomers Summer Retreat on “A Molecular View of Ion Aggregation.” Janna and Yuri were also attending.
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2013 March: American Physics Society (APS) Baltimore Conference: Bingxin gave a talk on “Coarse-Grained simulation of Solvated Cellulose 1Beta Microfibril”, Shih-Chun Huang gave a talk on “Structural determination of Cellulose and Hemicellulose in Plant Cell Wall”, Lalitha gave a talk on “High Aspect Ratio Nanofillers for Solid Polymer Electrolytes”, and Keran Lu gave a talk on “Characterization of String-Like Aggregates in Single-Ion Conductors.” David presented a poster on “The influence of ion content on mobility and ion aggregation in PEO-based single-ion conductors”, and Malgorzata presented a poster on “Can coarse-grained force field parameters be transferable?” Ben and Janna were also in attendance.
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2012 December: Congratulations to Shih-Chun for passing Comprehensive. Congratulations to Kan-Ju for obtaining a Post Doc position at MIT.
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2012 November: Bingxin and Shih-Chun attended the CLSF Retreat, and Bingxin presented “A Single Bead Coarse-Grained Model for Solvated Cellulose Microfibrils”
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2012 August: New Publication – Kan-Ju Lin and Janna Maranas “Cation Coordination and Motion in a Poly(ethylene oxide)-Based Single Ion Conductor” Macromolecules, Publication date (Web) – July 19, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/ma300716h . Congratulations to Keran Lu and David Caldwell for passing their Candidacy Exam. Work hard for the Comprehensive for next year! Bingxin and Shih-Chun went to and presented posters at The Plant Cell Walls Gordon Research Conference in Waterville, ME. The school year is starting and a fresh batch of first year graduate students are now arriving. Good luck everyone!
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2012 July: Congratulations to Kan-Ju Lin for successfully defending her thesis.Congratulations to Lalitha and Binxin for passing their comprehensive. Janna, Lalitha, Keran, and David attended the Gordon Polymer Physics Conference in Mt Holyoke, MA. Lalitha presented a poster. An Ionomer retreat was held at Penn State for researches involved in the DOE funded project. Janna, Kan-Ju, Keran, and Chia-Hui Lee attended.
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2012 June: Janna, Lalitha, Shih-Chun, and Peter attended The American Conference on Neutron Scattering in Washington DC. Janna presented “Dynamics and ion mobility in single ion conductors for lithium ion batteries.” Lalitha and Shih-Chun both presented posters. We welcome Peter, Derek, Xinren, and Joel for participating in the Research Experience for Undergrads (REU) program.
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2012 May: New Publication – Kokonad Sinha, Wenqin Wang, Karen I. Winey, and Janna K. Maranas “Dynamic Patterning in PEO-Based single Ion Conductors for Li Ion Batteries” Macromolecules, Publication date (Web) – April 30, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/ma300051y . Bingxin Fan and Shih-Chun Huang attended The Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation (CLSF) conference hosted at Penn State.
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2012 April: Keran Lu has been selected to receive one of the Diefenderfer Graduate Fellowships from the Collage of Engineering. This is a new Fellowship designed to support outstanding students who show potential to be “innovative and entrepreneurial-oriented graduate engineers“.
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2012 March: Shih-Chun and Bingxin attended ACS in San Diego Ca. Shih-Chun presented “Nanoscale structure of primary plant cell wall” and Bingxin presented “Coarse-grained simulation of cellulose microfibrils.”
