CAER News Archive: September 2003
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
(Patsy and Lee Todd talk with Fran Lockwood (Valvoline) and Uschi Graham (Center for Applied Energy Research) before the meeting.)
The Kentucky Nanomaterials Workshop (www.kynanomat.org) was held in Louisville, Kentucky on September 25-26. The meeting was well attended with 130 participants and speakers and included around 50 scientific posters as well.
University of Louisville President, Jim Ramsey and University of Kentucky President, Lee Todd provided the opening remarks for this workshop and each President focused on the importance of university-industry partnerships to further strengthen the developments of materials nanotechnology for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The organization of this meeting reflects a cooperative effort between UK and U of L to encourage faculty, researchers and industry representatives to work together towards common goals.
The mission of the KY Nanomat Workshop focused on integrating the capabilities of nanotechnology facilities at the regional and national levels, with the needs of Kentucky’s industries. It is critically important for Kentucky's economy that start-up and existing Kentucky businesses (in chemical products, electronics, transportation and equine sector, drug design, energy developments, and medical materials and devices) tie into, and use these unique facilities.
The purpose of the conference is to address the issues of how to commercialize nanotechnology in Kentucky and how to promote nanotechnology from being a scientific curiosity to something that helps Kentucky businesses and industries. During the plenary session of the workshop and especially during the forum discussion at the end of the meeting, which was chaired by both vice presidents for research, Dr. Nancy Martin of U of L and Dr. Wendy Baldwin of UK, great progress was made in bringing together representatives from Kentucky-based companies like Ashland/Valvoline, Lexmark, Toyota and Sud-Chemie, who are already finding ways of working together with Kentucky universities. The shared objective is not only to understand how to apply nanotechnology, but also how to communicate this to clients and to the general public. Finally, the workshop aimed at discussing the need of the Nanotechnology Center for Kentucky.
This workshop will be followed up with an international meeting on ‘Nanowires’ in June of 2004, and will be held at the Marriott Griffin Gate Hotel in Lexington, KY. For more information on the upcoming meeting, contact Dr. Uschi Graham at: graham@caer.uky.edu.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Each summer CONSOL Energy, Inc., along with the CAER, fund two students to participate in a summer research project at the CAER. These projects and students vary significantly from year to year, but all work on coal-related projects and are from the state of Kentucky. This year’s students and their projects are highlighted below:
caudilleThe Mine Mapping Program of the UK Center for Applied Energy Research is fortunate to have had Michael Caudill as an employee for the summer of 2003. Michael is in his fourth year at UK majoring in Geology. He is a student, originally from Ludlow, Kentucky. Christian holds a GPA of 3.7 in his field. With strengths in stratigraphy, Michael was a real asset to the Mine Map Program.
Michael performed a wide range of tasks regarding Kentucky's coal mine maps. Those tasks includes identifying maps from various sources that belong in the archives, mine map location, determination of geologic conditions (mines above and below), proximity to oil and gas wells and error correction. Other duties included utilizing the databases that index the maps and work with the online Geographic Information Systems, scanning, computer mapping and digital imagery.
By the end of the summer Michael was exposed to every facet of the operations of the Mine Map Repository. He gained a working understanding of Kentucky's coal mine maps, applied coal geology, computer mapping systems and the regulations regarding Kentucky coal mines.
As one of this summer’s CONSOL students, Clair Anderson focused on making the thousands of samples taken and stored annually by the CAER more lastingly useful to researchers. She designed a database capable of storing every significant attribute of a sample, regardless of its type. Each sample has a master number by which it is instantly recognizable in storage. Any chemical or physical analysis results, as well as original collection information, are immediately available. The nearly 1500 samples already cataloged within the new database include data in 86 fields as far reaching as ppm yttrium and median particle size. With this much information and the unique capabilities of a database, researchers can create queries to identify and analyze data from samples enriched in mercury, or pond samples taken within a certain time span. This eliminates the frustration and inefficiency of “losing” samples and their analytical data simply because researchers no longer work in the same lab, and have taken their files with them.
A logical extension of cataloging and centralizing data from power stations and ponds would be cataloging and centralizing the samples themselves, planned for later this year. By barcoding samples based on their unique master numbers and creating a universal storage space, the CAER could eliminate the “vanishing” sample that no one can locate, or the “phantom” sample that no one can identify. Thus, researchers that locate data of interest through the database can quickly find any of the remaining physical material for further analysis and research. With this system, samples and the data generated from them retain their usefulness for longer, and researchers have access to twenty or thirty times as much data as before.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
Friday, September 5, 2003
The second edition of 'Minerals in thin Section' has just been published. Kevin Henke is the co-author on this text book. According to the back cover, "This is the second edition of a concise, straightforward, and balanced presentation of the theory and techniques of optical mineralogy. Designed for students to have on hand in the laboratory, this manual includes data and photos for all major igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary minerals. 'Minerals in Thin Section' is the perfect supplement for mineralogy, optical mineralogy, and petrography courses." Kevin is a scientist at the CAER, whose current work includes research on mercury.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
The CAER has been notified that a pending DOE award was selected for negotiation in the Fischer-Tropsch area for a project titled "Separation of Fischer-Tropsch Wax Products from Ultra-fine Iron Catalysts" with Dr. Burt Davis as Principal Investigator. The amount (which is subject to negotiation), is for DOE to contribute $492,000 to the total value of $618,000.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
For the second time this summer an article authored by Uschi Graham and Burt Davis is being featured on the cover of the journal that is publishing it. This time it is the journal is Advanced Materials. The article is entitled "Morphological control of hollow tubular carbon nano-structures." Co-authors are: G. Bhimarasetti, M.K. Sunkara / University of Louisville; and K. Rajan, C. Suh, R. Dove / Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
CAER Associate Director, Burt Davis was awarded a US patent as co-inventor. The patent is assigned to Chevron and came as a result of CAER invoice/service work, rather than with a formal IP agreement, hence it is assigned to Chevron instead of UK. The title is "Process for producing C19 minus products having high olefinicity." Burt made excellent progress in this area, indicating that some of the conventional wisdom doesn't necessarily apply and that one can use a low temperature Fischer-Tropsch (FT) catalyst to make >60% olefins, which is a substantial step forward for FT.
CAER Associate Director Tom Robl and Senior Researcher Jack Groppo also were awarded a patent, entitled "Production of polymer filler and super-pozzolan from fly ash." The patent describes a method for recovering the smallest fly ash particles efficiently. With an average particle size of approximately 3 microns, the spherical fly ash particles can be used to enhance the physical properties of compounded plastics, but also have significant potential for improving the performance of structural concrete.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
Thursday, September 4, 2003
A CAER strategy session ("retreat"), stretching over two half days, was held with 18 CAER staff and four UK faculty associates attending. The meeting's purpose was to assess the technical progress and performance of the year since the last retreat, consider the current circumstances, and discuss plans for moving forward. The issue of the financial constraints, lack of cash flow from proposals and service/contract work as well as opportunities to rectify the gaps, were considered. The retreat was a good opportunity to share the technical content of the work between groups and to ensure that all researchers have an appreciation of the financial situation. Follow-up actions include that there will in the future be a CAER-wide technical "portfolio" meeting every four months to stimulate more collaboration between groups to improve the likelihood of winning proposals.
Posted by Marybeth McAlister [Link]
