2017 Annual

Report

CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY BENEFICIAL CATALYSIS The University of Kansas

Planting theSeeds of Innovation

Our mission is straightforward: Invent cleaner, safer, energy-efficient technologies that protect the planet and human health.

Our approach is unique: Students and researchers collaborate at the CEBC to design cleaner, safer, economically viable chemical technologies.

We actively seek out—and partner with—chemical companies. This industry-focused approach, uncommon in many university research programs, helps maximize the potential impact of our discoveries.

Contributors: Claudia Bode, Nancy Crisp, Chris Lyon, Albert Masino

Designer: Nancy Crisp

Copyright © 2018

www.cebc.ku.edu The Center for Environmentally Beneficial CatalysisTel: (785) 864-6050, Email: cebc@ku.edu

Planting Seeds Innovation

CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY BENEFICIAL CATALYSIS The University of Kansas

As the chemical industry’s global output continues to expand, the Center’s mission is more relevant than ever.

the of

From Aspiration to Achievement

From the start as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center, our strategic goal has been to position the CEBC as a resource for the chemical industry. During the past 15 years, we created a diversified research portfolio, built a unique infrastructure, broadened expertise, and fostered industry collaborations. We are pleased to report the successes for this past year, which underscore just how far we have come.

A record number of our member companies are now sponsoring research projects at the CEBC. We are also delighted that ExxonMobil decided to rejoin as an industry partner. The surge in sponsored projects boosted our overall funding above $4.5 million for the year.

Several exciting new initiatives are underway. Our resource-efficient cata-lytic conversion technologies for shale gas, biomass and carbon dioxide are advancing. The blend of faculty expertise and unique high-pressure instru-mentation are serving to effectively tackle both the fundamental and practical challenges posed by such complex reaction environments.

Recent faculty recruitments have strengthened CEBC’s capabilities, and we now welcome Alan Allgeier who brings a wealth of industrial experience in catalysis. The expanded expertise in computational chemistry, advanced sep-arations, electrochemistry, surface science and materials characterization has spawned unique collaborations and important discoveries. Many have caught the attention of the science community through publications in prestigious journals, cover articles, and edited books, as highlighted in this report.

We congratulate two faculty members who received prestigious honors, bringing national visibility to the center and KU. Franklin Tao was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Raghu-nath Chaudhari won the 2018 Raney Award given by the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society for outstanding contributions to the science and applications of base metal catalysts. We are indeed proud of their accomplishments.

We are pleased to welcome Cynthia Jenks of Argonne National Laboratory, John Kitchin of Carnegie Mellon University, and Clark Landis of the Univer-sity of Wisconsin as new members of CEBC’s Science Advisory Board. These renowned scientists and engineers play a key role in assessment and strategic planning.

Our accomplishments and sustained successes are made possible by the dedicated work of students, researchers, faculty, and staff. Support from KU administrators and guidance from our advisory boards are essential as well, and gratefully appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bala Subramaniam CEBC Director

CEBC 2017 Annual Report | 2

from the

Director

CEBC Publicationseach year since inception

Annual R&D Funding by sourceshows significant growth

in industry funding

3 | CEBC 2017 Annual Report

Industry support spikes in 2017Chemical companies took notice of the CEBC this year—big time.

Seven companies launched nine projects with the center in 2017. At more than $1.5 million, these investments are ten times greater than the 2016 level of industry support. The trend continues into 2018, with three new projects just in the first quarter.

The new industry-aided projects build on research advances made at the CEBC with state and federal funds. While public funding plants the seeds of innovation, corporate support guides new discoveries from lab to marketplace.

The benefits go both ways. Companies gain access to expertise and instruments. Students and postdocs gain experience and often employment opportunities.

CEBC Director Bala Subramaniam noted that many of these companies attended an industry workshop at the center in 2016. He said, “I’m delighted to see that companies are interested in leveraging CEBC’s long-term success in both cutting-edge fundamental science and applied research.”

Shiflett lab unique in sorption analysis

The most advanced gravimetric microbalance laboratory in the U.S can be found at The University of Kansas in the Shiflett Foundation labs, where several gravimetric sorption analyzers from Hiden Isochema are available for CEBC research. For dry gases, hydrocarbons and fluoro-carbons, an IGA microbalance with a mass spectrometer, and a XEMIS microbalance are both operational. The XEMIS can operate at high pressure with corrosive and toxic gases, and KU is the only U.S. university that has one. The lab also houses an IGASorp instrument, a microbalance specifically designed to measure the sorption properties of vapors such as water, alcohols, and ketones. AHiden Intelligent Gravimetric Analyzer (IGA), provides a range of gas sorp-tion measurements, as well as kinetic and surface area studies for solids and liquids over a wide range of experimental conditions.

CEBC infrastructure enhances industry projectsSince its 2003 start, the CEBC has acquired more than $7 million worth of equipment, largely from federal grants and industry membership funds. Many discoveries have been made with this equipment, including 42 patents and 384 publications.

As anticipated, CEBC member companies are choosing to leverage this infrastructure for proprietary research. The reason: cost savings. While new reactors may cost tens of thousands of dollars, existing reactors can be used as-is or customized for a few thousand dollars. Companies can test out new ideas more easily and at less cost.

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Mark Shiflett

Industry reps attend CEBC’s 2016 Emerging

Feedstocks ForumOzonolysis test: Associate Researcher Michael Lundin

XEMIS microbalance at Shiflett’s KU lab

In-demand specialized equipment:. An oxidation spray reactor that reduces substrate and solvent burning, improves mass transfer, and maintains constant temperature. A specialized setup for ozonolysis with benign carbon dioxide that stabilizes the ozone, curtails flammability risks and enhances product selectivity. Three continuous membrane reactors for retaining costly metal catalysts, as well as a six reactor Parr parallel system and several batch, fixed-bed, fluidized bed and continuous stirred tank reactors. A first-of-its kind apparatus for electrocatalysis with liquid carbon dioxide and a custom-built scanning electrochemical microscopy instrument. X-ray photoelectron spectrometer that operates at ambient pressures . In-situ vibrational spectroscopy for surface science analysis . A milling machine for in-house equipment fabrication

Microwaves cook up hot electrocatalysts

Microwave ovens have been rapidly popping corn and splattering soup for decades. But they are not just for kitchens. Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Kevin Leonard and his students recently found that microwaves help make nimble electrocatalysts for splitting water. Solar-powered water splitting gives off oxygen and hydrogen, a clean-burning source of energy. Electrocatalysts speed up the process, but are currently made from rare and costly precious metals. Leonard’s group—and many others around the world—are racing to develop high-performing electrocatalysts from abundant and cheap materials. At just pennies per ounce, nickel and iron are possible options. A recent paper by Leonard (see back cover) describes how his team turned these metals into an electrocatalyst for the more complex part of the water splitting process, known as the “oxygen evolution reaction.” Leonard’s new nickel-iron electrocatalyst performs similar to the costly precious metal version. The trick: microwave heat during the synthesis process. This leads to a layered, disordered structure with fast- acting catalytic sites.

This is the first-ever report of such a catalyst. A patent application

for the new synthesis tech-nique has been filed. The work was supported with an Army Research Office

Young Investigator award.

CEBC 2017 Annual Report | 4

Cover to Cover: Featuring CEBC researchersThe cover of the November 2017 issue of the AIChE Journal features an article titled “The Solubility of Gases in Ionic Liq-uids” written by KU Foundation Professor Mark Shiflett and Edward Maginn, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame.

The cover of the January 2018 issue of Chemistry A Eu-ropean Journal features an article titled “Trivalent Lewis Acidic Cations Govern the Electronic Properties and Stabil-ity of Heterobimetallic Complexes of Nickel” written by CEBC/KU Chemistry Professor James Blakemore, KU Chemistry postdoc Davide Lionetti, KU graduate student Amit Kumar, and Victor Day, KU MSG-Xray Crystallography Lab Director.

Modeling catalysts, improving design Finding the perfect catalyst is like winning the lottery—only harder. Like picking Powerball numbers, stumbling upon the right combination of atoms and molecules, time and temperature, materials and methods, can take years.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Marco Caricato is part of an NSF-funded project at the CEBC focused on trying to beat the improbable odds. Connecting theoreticians with experimentalists, the project aims to find how catalysts work at the most fundamental level. Such knowledge could predict ways to design new and better catalysts — rationally instead of randomly.

In a recent paper (see back cover), Caricato’s group described 70 model structures they created using a computational method called density functional theory. The models simulate geometrical arrangements of possible catalytic sites in mesoporous silicates, where metal atoms are grafted into the silicon-oxygen framework.

Associate Researcher Anand Ramanathan synthesized and tested the mesoporous silicates in the lab. With their spacious pores, such materials show promise as catalysts for the bulky biomass molecules leftover from the pulp and paper industry.

Caricato’s computer simulations are consistent with Ramanathan’s experiments: Acidity depends on the type of metal and how it’s grafted into the silica. This confirms that the models are representative of the actual material. It also reveals how structure enhances acidity, a pivotal discovery for improving catalyst design.

The project is part of a $4 million interstate grant from the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Chemists and engineers from KU and the University of South Carolina are collaborating on this project. The goal is to develop catalysts that can coax stubborn lignin molecules—from plants and trees—into renewable substitutes for petrochemicals.

ResearchCaricato research group, from left: Marco Caricato,

Hunter Leblanc, Amy Jystad

Kevin Leonard

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Selected 2017 Invited TalksAlan Allgeier• NAM25, North American Catalysis Society, Denver, CO, June 4-9• Keynote, ACS Midwest Regional Meeting, Lawrence, KS, October 19James Blakemore • Symposium “CO2 Utilization”, 21st Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference, Reston, Virginia, June 14• Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France, July 6• Young Scholars Symposium at Rocky Mountain Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Loveland, Colorado, October 26R.V. Chaudhari• Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research, Univ. of Louisville (KY), March 17• Binghamton University, State University of New York, April 21Tim Jackson• 253rd ACS National Meeting & Exposition, San Francisco, California, April 2-6• Catalysis Research PI Meeting, Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Gaithersburg, Maryland, July 26-28Brian Laird• Department of Chemistry, East China Normal University, Shanghai, ``Molecular modeling of gas-expanded solvents for use as catalytic reaction media,” June 2;One of 3 colloquia Laird presented at universities in Shanghai, May 31-June 2• ACS Midwest Regional Meeting, Lawrence, KS, October 20Mark Shiflett• European Conference on Thermophysical Properties, Graz, Austria, September 5 Bala Subramaniam • 7th Asia-Pacific Congress on Catalysis, Mumbai, India, January 17-20 • Symposium on CO2 Utilization, 21st Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference, Reston, VA, June • International Congress in Engineering of Advanced Materials, Erlangen, Germany, October 10-12 • Panel Discussion: Rethinking Grand Challenges in Sustainability for the 21st Century, AIChE Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, October 31 Franklin Tao • ACS National Meeting, Symposia: Advanced X-ray Techniques for Catalyst Characterization and C1 Catalysis, San Francisco, CA, April 2-6 • Materials Research Society, Symposium: Novel Catalytic Materials in Energy and Environment, Phoenix, AZ, April 17-21

Chaudhari bestowed ORCS Raney AwardThe Organic Reaction Catalysis Society (ORCS) has announced Raghunath V. Chaudhari, Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, as the recipient of the 2018 Murray Raney Award, sponsored by W.R. Grace, for his significant contributions to advance the use of base metal catalysis in organic reactions. ORCS noted, “In a long and distinguished career that has accomplishments spanning a wide variety of heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts, Dr. Chaudhari has made seminal contributions to catalysis by base metals.”

The organization cited numerous examples of Chaudhari’s work, and said he “is active in the catalysis community with a network distributed widely among academic and industrial scientists and engineers. He holds several editorial responsibilities and has been prolific in organizing conferences in the US and Asia. Finally, he’s especially prolific in innovation, with over 60 approved patents and 295 journal publications.”

5 | CEBC 2017 Annual Report

Franklin Tao honored as AAAS Fellow

CEBC faculty member Franklin Tao has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-ence (AAAS). Tao received the honor for distinguished contributions to the field of in situ/operando studies of materials at a molecular level, particularly catalysts un-der reaction condition and during cataly-sis. Tao, the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his work, is an associate professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Petroleum Engineering at KU.

Surface science journal names Tao an editor

Prof. Franklin Tao is now a member of the Applied Surface Science editorial board. Established in 1985, the journal publishes work in surface science, catalysis, materials and energy science.

Accolades

Franklin Tao

James Blakemore

R.V. Chaudhari

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New SAB members

We’re pleased to welcome three new members to our Science Advisory Board. As experts in related science and engineering fields, the new members will serve a three-year term to provide guidance and feed-back on CEBC’s projects and programs.

Cynthia Jenks, Chemical Sciences and En-gineering Division Director, Argonne Na-tional Laboratory, is an AAAS Fellow with research interests in surface structure and reactivity, surface structure-property rela-tionships, catalysis and thin film growth.

John Kitchin, Chemical Engineering Pro-fessor, Carnegie-Mellon University, has received both DOE (2010) and Presidential (2011) Early Career awards. He conducts surface science and CO2 capture research.

Clark Landis, Chemistry Professor, Univer-sity of Wisconsin-Madison, is an ACS and AAAS Fellow. He conducts research in ho-mogeneous catalysis, including computa-tion and theory.

Alan Allgeier, new CEBC professorCEBC welcomes our newest faculty member, Alan Allgeier. As an associate professor of Chemical Engineering, Allgeier utilizes experiences from his twenty-year career in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries to envision and realize revolutionary technologies for the sustainable manufacture of chemicals and materials. His expertise in heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis and reactor design have been instrumental in producing large scale monomers for nylon and polyesters, and small scale pharmaceuticals and specialty chemical products. Beyond sustainable manufacturing, Allgeier focuses on the characterization of porous materials including catalysts, but also biomass, thermal insulation, solid formulations of pharmaceuticals and adsorbents.

CEBC 2017 Annual Report | 6

Prestigious grant awarded to Juan Bravo SuarezJuan Bravo Suarez, Assistant Professor of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, has been awarded a Doctoral New Investigator grant from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.

The two-year, $110,000 award seeks to reveal the mysteries behind an industrial process for making propylene, one of the most versatile building blocks in chemical manufacturing. Propylene is made with the help of catalysts, substances that trigger molecules to break apart and reform into other molecules. Many consumer goods, such as plastics, fuels, cosmetics and detergents, get their start from propylene.

Resources

. . . At KU, Bravo-Suarez will be well-equipped to peek inside the inner workings of catalysts. Armed with infrared, Raman and UV-visible spectroscopic equipment, his team will look at catalysts in action, just as ethylene and butene molecules are transformed into propylene in a process called metathesis.

“Knowing how catalysts work will help us design more efficient catalysts and cheaper ways to make propylene,” said Bravo Suarez. “It will also help us to find new and better ways to produce more with less.”

Alan Allgeier

JuanBravo Suarez

2017 SAB members left to right: Yong Wang (Wash-ington State Univ.), Jerry Spivey (Louisiana State Univ.), Mahdi Abu-Omar (Univ. of California Santa Barbara), Peter Stair (Northwestern Univ.)

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Cool catalyst is a matchmaker for methaneNew catalyst makes acetic acid by coupling methane,

carbon monoxide, and oxygenWhile methane is plentiful, it’s not very reactive. To get this stable molecule to marry other molecules usually takes costly energy and blazing heat. Is there a way to charm methane to react at more of a low simmer?

Franklin (Feng) Tao, University of Kansas Miller Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and his colleagues are tackling this challenge.

The group recently discovered a catalyst that drives methane to couple with carbon monoxide and oxygen at low temperature. The resulting product is mostly acetic acid, a pungent colorless liquid used widely in food, chemical and medical industries.

The catalyst’s ability to coax steadfast methane to hook up with carbon monoxide and oxygen lies in its structure. Isolated rhodium atoms dot the inside of the micropores winding through an aluminosilicate zeolite mineral called ZSM-5. After analyzing the catalyst with various methods, including X-ray absorption spectroscopy, Tao’s team revealed that RhO5 species are anchored to the zeolite, which are a thousand times more active than rhodium species free-floating in solution.

Tao is presenting this work at the 2018 American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans as part of a symposium or-ganized by the Division of Catalysis Science & Technology.

Pump up the volume and saveNew butadiene process could save energy, cut costs

For many years, scientists have been exploring what happens when gases like carbon dioxide are dissolved in liquids. Of course we all know what happens to water: it turns fizzy. But what about organic solvents? They take up huge amounts of gases, expanding in volume like an inflatable beach ball. This changes their physical properties and impacts chemical reactions such as hydroformylations performed in that environment.

CEBC Director Bala Subramaniam and his graduate student, Dupeng Liu, are exploiting the novel effects of these “gas expanded liquids.” Recently, Liu’s research showed how this technology enhances the making of butyraldehyde, a building block for consumer products like detergents, perfumes, and pharmaceuticals. The results, which are published in the AIChE journal (see

back cover), suggest the technology enables using a mixed feed of propane and propylene, instead of just super pure propylene like the current industrial process. Since only propylene reacts to make the product, the enriched propane stream from the reactor can be reused to make more propylene! Eliminating the need for a costly purification step could save energy, curb greenhouse gas emissions and cut both capital and production costs.

7 | CEBC 2017 Annual Report

ACS symposium series volume released

CEBC faculty members Aaron Scurto and Mark Shiflett edited the recently released American Chemical Society (ACS) Sympo-sium Series volume, Ionic Liquids: Current State and Future Directions. With chap-ters written by leading experts in the ionic liquids field, the book provides an update on recent research and applications, span-ning research and development activities from fundamental and experimental in-vestigations to commercial applications.The text was developed from a selection of papers presented in a two-session sym-posium held at the 2016 ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA, in honor of Shif-lett as he was named an ACS Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Division Fellow.The book cover (above) , featuring artwork of an ionic liquid vapor-liquid interface, was designed by Scurto and Shiflett in col-laboration with Edward J. Maginn and Kristina Davis of Notre Dame.

Top photo: PhD candidate Dupeng Liu works in the Subramaniam lab

At left, Franklin Tao’s new catalyst: Tucked inside the pores of a zeolite this rhodium-based catalyst couples methane, CO, and oxygen to

make acetic acid at low temperature. (Rh = green; Al = gold; O = red; C = blue)

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Meet our new Industry Liaison Director Albert Masino joined the CEBC in May 2017 as Industry Liaison Director. He recently retired from Chevron Phillips Chemical Company after nearly 35 years in research and development. As Team Leader for Catalyst Development and Commercialization, Masino led the polyolefins R&D unit in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He is an inventor on more than 45 U.S. patents in the fields of homogeneous (metallocene, single-cite) and heterogeneous catalysis applied to ethylene and propylene polymerization performed in loop and gas-phase reactor platforms, as well as development of novel polyolefin materials. He earned his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Alberta, Edmonton after receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

New industry member brings familiar facesCEBC welcomes back ExxonMobil as an industry partner. We are especially pleased to reunite with former Jayhawks who now work at ExxonMobil. (David) Ben Spry will serve on the CEBC Industry Advisory Board. He graduated from KU with a B.S. in Chemistry & Mathematics in 2004, then earned M.S. and PhD degrees from Stanford University. He is now a Chemical Engineer for ExxonMobil. Also working with CEBC is Javier Guzman, ExxonMobil group head, who was an assistant professor of Chemical Engineering at KU from 2006 to 2009. He worked for BP for a year before joining ExxonMobil in 2010.

One of the largest companies in the world, ExxonMobil focuses on sustain-able solutions based on time-tested business practices. The company has manufacturing capacity in every major region of the world.

Intellectual Property

Corporate partners have privileged access to license intellectual property developed at CEBC on core projects, including a total of 48 invention disclosures and 17 patents.

“Spray oxidation process for produ-cing 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid from hydroxymethylfurfural,” Subramaniam, B.; Zuo, X.; Busch, D.; Venkitasubramanian, P. U.S. Patent 9,586,923 B2 (issued 3/7/2017)“Depolymerization of lignin using metal incorporated mesoporous silicate catalysts,” Subramaniam, B.; Ramanathan, A.; Nandiwale, K.; Danby, A.; Chaudhari, R.V. U.S. Patent Allowed

CEBC 2017 Annual Report | 8

Industry

2017 Industry Advisory BoardCompany Board MemberArcher Daniels Midland Derek Butler, Scientist IIIChemours Technologies Austin Reed, Technical FellowChevron Phillips Chemical Carlton Ash, R&D ManagerDuPont Rakesh Nambiar, R&D LeaderExxonMobil Ben Spry, Chemical EngineerHoneywell UOP Peter Coughlin, Dir. Catalysis & Materials ResearchINVISTA Bill Tenn, Core Intermediates R&DReliance Industries Ltd. Thomas Mathew, President - PTA & GasificationW.R. Grace Dorai Ramprasad, Global Technology Manager

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Albert Masino

Industry attendees at CEBC Spring 2017 Meeting

Industry attendees at CEBC Fall 2017 Meeting

Leadership training promotes diversity in STEMCEBC’s Education Director, Claudia Bode, recently was invited to participate in the 2017 Linton-Poodry SACNAS Leadership Institute led by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SAC-NAS), and sponsored by the American Association for Advancement of Sci-ence (AAAS). The institute was held in July 2017 at the AAAS headquarters in Washington, DC. At the conference, a new generation of minority STEM lead-ers learned tools to lead institutional transformation and help build a critical mass of STEM professionals and leaders from underrepresented communities.

Eduation Journal features CEBC contribution

9 | CEBC 2017 Annual Report

ACS Meeting offers training for educators The American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting hosted a half-day professional development session in Lawrence, Kansas, for two dozen science teachers on Oct. 21, 2017. CEBC Education Director Claudia Bode helped organize the event. Three participants from the CEBC’s NSF-funded “Research Experiences for Teachers” program presented at the meeting, including Jenny Gartner from Labette County High School, Amy Johnston-Clement from Olathe North High School, and Stanford Spurlin from Olathe East High School. Attendees learned how to engage students in inquiry, com-putational modeling and higher order reasoning.

Co-Founder of Green Chemistry presents seminar at CEBC

John Warner, President and CTO of Warner Babcock Institute, gave a seminar for the CEBC on December 5th. Ten middle school students were present for the event. As one of the co-founders of the green chemistry movement, Warner inspired the audience to design safer materials for a more sustainable future.

Photo above: John Warner with Lawrence, KS middle-schoolers

The November 14, 2017 Journal of Chemi-cal Education special issue on “Polymer Concepts across the Curriculum” includes an article by CEBC Eduation Director Clau-dia Bode (see back cover). The special issue is designed to help academic readers of the Journal improve the teaching and learning of polymer concepts at their institutions. It features a collection of contributed pa-pers describing how polymers are being taught in general, foundational, and ad-vanced chemistry courses and also in high schools, workshops, and demonstrations for the public. Bode’s contributed article, “Developing Students’ Understanding of Industrially Relevant Economic and Life Cycle Assessments,” is based on the core research at CEBC and lessons developed from the Research Experiences for Teachers program.

Postdoc’s grant to enhance undergraduate labsJulian Silverman, postdoctoral teaching and research associate, won a resources grant from KU Libraries to adapt his economic and environmen-tal assessment tool for use in undergraduate chemistry lab classes. In spring 2017, Silverman created the assessment tool for a graduate level course on industrial catalysis taught by CEBC Director Bala Subramaniam. The goal was to foster higher-level thinking about economic and environmental impacts of new technologies. The tool guides students through a simplified life cycle analysis using an Excel spreadsheet. The adapted version will help under-graduates contextualize the broader impacts of lab activities and understand how their choices can lead to safer and cost-effective practices. When com-pleted, the tool will have open access through KU Libraries.

JulianSilverman

JennyGartner

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Graduate students win awardsPallavi Bobba won one of 10 Sustainability Leadership Awards given by the University of Kansas Center for Sustainability on April 21. The award recognizes outstanding leadership and creativity in addressing issues of ecology, efficiency and equity on the KU campus and in the broader community.

Kakasaheb Nandiwale won 1st Place in the Graduate Engineering Association’s Research Poster Competition on April 20 at KU for his poster on lignin depolymerization.

Tugba Turnaoglu won 2nd Place in the Graduate Engineering Association’s Research Poster Competition on April 20 at KU. Her poster featured ammonia in ionic liquids.

Where in the world are the CEBC alumni?Hong Jin,, PhD 2006, KU, has been promoted to Senior Staff Engineer, Downstream Fuels & Strategy, at Chevron.

Jesse Kern, PhD 2016, KU, has joined the chemistry faculty of Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA.

(Cyrus) Kourosh Kian, MS Chemical Engineering 2017, is now a research assistant at Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO.

Jianfeng Wu, CEBC postdoc 2015-2017, recently joined Lanzhou University, Gansu, China, as a faculty member in the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

Simin Yu, CEBC postdoc 2016-2017, is now NMR manager at Lanzhou University, Gansu, China.

CEBC 2017 Annual Report | 10

Industry partner shares insights with students

Dorai Ramprasad, Global Technology Manager at W.R. Grace, shared advice about mergers, takeovers and startups with students at the 2017 fall advisory board meeting. With over 30 years of in-dustrial experience, he has seen firsthand the ups and downs of R&D. His advice to students: be proactive and pre- pare for changes in the job market.

2017 Conferences AttendedPacific Conference on Spectroscopy & Dynamics, Pacific Grove, CA Hiranya Mendis and Prof. Ward Thompson

American Chemical Society National Meeting, Washington, DCPallavi Bobba and Yu Tang

American Conference on Theoretical Chemistry, Boston, MA Dr. Pablo Palafox and Zeke Piskulich

International Conference on Catalysis & Chemical Engineering, Baltimore, MD, Crystal Shi (travel award recipient) and Ziwei Song

Liquid Gordon Research Conference, Holderness, NH, Zeke Piskulich

American Institute of Chemical Engineers Meeting, Minneapolis, MN Pallavi Bobba (travel award recipient), Prof. Juan Bravo Suarez, Prof. R.V. Chaudhari, Dr. Bill Gilbert, Amy Jystad, Dupeng Liu, Dr. Michael Lundin, Dr. Swarup Maiti, Dr. Dave Minnick, Kakasaheb Nandiwale, Alejandra Rocha, Crystal Shi, Prof. Mark Shiflett, Dr. Julian Silverman, Priya Srinivasan, Tugba Turnaoglu, Prof. Bala Subramaniam and Hongda Zhu

North American Catalysis Society, Denver, CO, Prof. Juan Bravo Suarez, Dr. Maheswari Rajamanickam, Dr. Anand Ramanathan, Prof. Bala Subramaniam, Yu Tang, Dr. Jianfeng Wu, Dr. Simin Yu and Dr. Xiaobin Zuo

Dorai Ramprasadof W.R. Grace

TraineesUndergraduates rise to

graduate researchers

Four CEBC undergraduate students who recently earned bachelor degrees

have started their graduate training at KU with CEBC faculty mentors. Zeke Piskulich: Graduate student

with Prof. Ward Thompson, under-grad research with Thompson’s group

Nick Reding: Graduate student with Prof. Mark Shiflett, undergrad

research with R.V. Chaudhari’s groupTess Seuferling: Graduate student

with Prof. Kevin Leonard, undergrad research with Leonard’s group

Kyle Stephens: Graduate student with Prof. Alan Allgeier, undergrad research

with Bala Subramaniam’s group

From top: Zeke, Nick, Tess, Kyle

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Biancardi, A.; Caraianai, C.; Chan, W.-L.; Caricato, M. “How the Number of Layers and Relative Posi-tion Modulate the Interlayer Electron Transfer in π-Stacked 2D Materials,” J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2017 8 1365-1370. Biancardi, A.; Martin, S. C.; Liss, C.; Caricato, M. “Electronic Coupling for Donor-Bridge-Acceptor Systems with a Bridge-Overlap Approach,” J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2017 13:9 4154-4161. Daniels, I. N.; Wang, Z.; Laird, B. B., “Dielectric Properties of Organic Solvents in an Electric Field,” J. Phys. Chem. C 2017 121:2 1025-1031. Dou, J.; Tang, Y.; Nguyen, L.; Tong, X.; Thapa, P. S.; Tao, F. F. “Oxidation of Cyclohexene Catalyzed by Nanoporous Au(Ag) in Liquid Phase,” Catal. Lett. 2017 147:2 442-452. Fung, V.; Tao, F. F.; Jiang, D. “General Structure-Re-activity Relationship for Oxygen on Transition-Metal Oxides,” J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2017 8:10 2206-2211. Gilbert, W. J. R.; Johnson, S. J.; Tsau, J.-S.; Liang, J.-T.; Scurto, A. M. “Enzymatic degradation of polyacryl-amide in aqueous solution with peroxidase and H2O2,” J. Appl. Poly. Sci. 2017 134:10 . Gilbert, W. J. R.; Safarov, J.; Minnick, D. L.; Rocha, M. A.; Hassel, E. P.; Shiflett, M. B. “Density, Viscosity, and Vapor Pressure Measurements of Water + Lith-ium Bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide Solutions”, J. Chem. Eng. Data 2017 62:7 2056-2066. Henke, W. C.; Lionetti, D.; Moore, W. N. G.; Hopkins, J. A.; Day, V. W.; Blakemore, J. D. “Ligand Substitu-ents Govern the Efficiency and Mechanistic Path of Hydrogen Production with [Cp*Rh] Catalysts,” ChemSusChem 2017 10 4589-4598. Huang, D. L.; Vinyard, D. J.; Blakemore, J. D.; Hash-mi, S. M.; Crabtree, R. H. “Cp* versus bis-carbonyl iridium precursors as CH oxidation precatalysts,” Or-ganometallics 2017 36:1 199-206. Hong, Y.; Zhang, S.; Tao, F. F.; Wang, Y. “Stabilization of Iron-Based Catalysts against Oxidation: An In Situ Ambient-Pressure X-ray Photoelectron Spectrosco-py (AP-XPS) Study,” ACS Catal. 2017 7:5 3639-3643. Jin, X.; Yan, H.; Zeng, C.; Thapa, P. S.; Subramaniam, B.; Chaudhari, R. V. “Phase Transformed PtFe Nano-composites Show Enhanced Catalytic Performances in Oxidation of Glycerol to Tartronic Acid,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2017 56:45 13157-13164. Jin, X.; Bobba, P.; Reding, N.; Song, Z.; Thapa, P. S.; Prasad, G.; Subramaniam, B.; Chaudhari, R. V. “Ki-netic modeling of carboxylation of propylene oxide to propylene carbonate using ion-exchange resin catalyst in a semi-batch slurry reactor,” Chem. Eng. Sci. 2017 168 189-203. Kian, K.; Scurto, A. M. “Heat Transport Properties of CO2-Expanded Liquids: n-Hexane, n-Decane, and n-Tetradecane,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2017 56:44 12822-12832. Leon, A. Y.; Guzman, A.; Laverde, D.; Chaudhari, R. V.; Subramaniam, B.; Bravo-Suarez, J. J. “Thermal crack-ing and catalytic hydrocracking of a Colombian vacu-um residue and its maltenes and asphaltenes fractions in toluene,” Energy & Fuels 2017 31:4 3868-3877. Lionetti, D.; Day, V. W.; Blakemore, J. D. “Noncova-lent immobilization and surface characterization of lanthanide complexes on carbon electrodes,” Dalton Trans. 2017 46:35 11779-11789. Lionetti, D.; Day, V. W.; Blakemore, J. D. “Synthesis and Electrochemical Properties of Half-Sandwich Rhodium and Iridium Methyl Complexes,” Organo-metallics 2017 36:10 1897-1905. Lu, Y. Zhang, R.; Cao, B.; Ge, B.; Tao, F. F.; Shan, J.; Nguyen, L. Bao, Z.; Wu, T.; Pote, J. W.; Wange, B.; Yu,

F. “Elucidating the Copper-Hagg Iron Carbide Syner-gistic Interactions for Selective CO Hydrogenation to Higher Alcohols,” ACS Catal. 2017 7:8 5500-5512. Lundin, M. D.; Danby, A. M.; Akien, G. R.; Venkitasu-bramanian, P.; Martin, K. J.; Busch, D. H.; Subrama-niam, B. “Intensified and safe ozonolysis of fatty acid methyl esters in liquid CO2 in a continuous reactor,” AIChE J. 2017 63:7 2819-2826. Massie, A. A.; Denler, M. C.; Caroso, L. T.; Walker, A. N.; Hossain, M. K.; Day, V. W.; Nordlander, E.; Jack-son, T. A. “Equatorial Ligand Perturbations Influence the Reactivity of Manganese(IV)-Oxo Complexes,” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017 56 4178-4182. Medina, J. C.; Figueroa, M.; Manrique, R.; Rodriguez Pereira, J.; Srinivasan, P. D.; Bravo-Suarez, J. J.; Bal-dovino Medrano, V. G.; Jimenez, R.; Karelovic, A. “Catalytic consequences of Ga promotion on Cu for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol,” Catal. Sci. Technol. 2017 7 3375-3387. Minnick, D. L.; Gilbert, W. J. R.; Rocha, M. A.; Shiflett, M. B. “Thermodynamic measurement and model-ing of vinyl fluoride solubility in aqueous lithium Bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide Li+Tf2N- + H2O so-lutions,” Fluid Phase Eq. 2017 444 61-68. Mueanngern, Y.; Yang, X.; Tang, Y.; Tao, F. F.; Baker, L. R. “Catalysis at Multiple Length Scales: Crotonal-dehyde Hydrogenation at Nanoscale and Mesoscale Interfaces in Platinum-Cerium Oxide Catalysts,” J. Phys. Chem. C 2017 121:25 13765-13776. Nandiwale, K. Y.; Danby, A. M.; Ramanathan, A.; Chaudhari, R.V.; Subramaniam, B. “Zirconium-Incor-porated Mesoporous Silicates Show Remarkable Lig-nin Depolymerization Activity,” ACS Sus. Chem. Eng. 2017 5:8 7155-7164. Pei, Y.; Qi, Z.; Goh, T. W.; Wang, L.-L.; Maligal-Ganesh, R. V.; MacMurdo, H. L.; Zhang, S.; Xiao, C.; Li, X.; Tao, F. F.; Johnson, D. D.; Huang, W. “Intermetallic struc-tures with atomic precision for selective hydrogena-tion of nitroarenes,” J. Catal. 2017 356 307-314. Peng, Y.; Ramos-Garces, M. V.; Lionetti, D.; Blake-more, J. D. “Structural and Electrochemical Conse-quences of [Cp*] Ligand Protonation,” Inorg. Chem. 2017 56:17 10824-10831. Piskulich, Z. A.; Mesele, O. O.; Thompson, W. H. “Re-moving the barrier to the calculation of activation en-ergies: Diffusion coefficients and reorientation times in liquid water,” J. Chem. Phys. 2017 147 134103. Ramakumar, K.; Maji, T.; Partridge, J. J.; Tunge, J. A. “Synthesis of Spirooxindoles via the tert-Amino Ef-fect,” Org. Lett. 2017 19 4014-4017. Ramanathan, A.; Wu, J.-F.; Maheswari, R.; Hu, Y.; Subramaniam, B. “Synthesis of molybdenum-in-corporated mesoporous silicates by evaporation-induced self-assembly: Insights into surface oxide species and corresponding olefin metathesis activ-ity,” Micro. Meso. Mater. 2017 245 118-125. Shaugnessy, C. I.; Jantz, D. T.; Leonard, K. C. “Selec-tive Electrochemical CO2 Reduction to CO Using In-Situ Reduced In2O3 Nanocatalysts,” J. Mater. Chem. A 2017 5 22743-22749. Shiflett, M. B.; Maginn, E. J. “The Solubility of Gases in Ionic Liquids,” AIChE J. 2017 63:11 4722-4737. Sohn, H.; Celik, G.; Gunduz, S.; Dogu, D.; Zhang, S.; Shan, J.; Tao, F. F. “Oxygen Mobility in Pre-Reduced Nano- and Macro-Ceria with Co Loading: An AP-XPS, In-Situ DRIFTS and TPR Study,” Catal. Lett. 2017 147:11 2863-2876. Song, Z.; Jin, X.; Hu, Y.; Subramaniam, B.; Chaudhari, R. V. “Intriguing Catalyst (CaO) Pretreatment Effects and Mechanistic Insights during Propylene Carbon-ate Transesterification with Methanol,” ACS Sus. Chem. Eng. 2017 5:6 4718-4729.

See complete list: www.cebc.ku.edu/publications

Taatjes, C. A.; Liu, F.; Rotavera, B.; Kumar, M.; Cara-van, R.; Osborn, D. L.; Thompson, W. H.; Lester, M. I. “Hydroxyacetone Production From C3 Criegee Inter-mediates,” J. Phys. Chem. A 2017 121:1 16-23. Takanabe, K.; Khan, A. M.; Tang, Y.; Nguyen, L.; Ziani, A.; Jacobs, B. W.; Elbaz, A. M.; Sarathy, S. M.; Tao, F. F. “Integrated In Situ Characterization of a Molten Salt Catalyst Surface: Evidence of Sodium Peroxide and Hydroxyl Radical Formation,” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017 56:35 10403-10407. ten Dam, J.; Ramanathan, A.; Djanashvili, K.; Kaptei-jnc, F.; Hanefeld, U. “Synthesis, characterization and performance of bifunctional catalysts for the syn-thesis of menthol from citronellal,” RSC Adv. 2017 7 12041-12053. Wu, J.-F.; Ramanathan, A.; Subramaniam, B. “Novel tungsten-incorporated mesoporous silicates syn-thesized via evaporation-induced self-assembly: Enhanced metathesis performance,” J. Catal. 2017 350 182-188. Wu, Z.; Cheng, Y.; Tao, F.; Daemen, L.; Foo, G. S.; Nguyen, L.; Zhang, X.; Beste, A.; Ramirez-Cuesta, A. J. “Direct Neutron Spectroscopy Observation of Ce-rium Hydride Species on a Cerium Oxide Catalyst,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017 139:28 9721-9727. Zhu, H.; Ramanathan, A.; Wu, J.-F.; Chaudhari, R. V.; Subramaniam, B. “Effects of tunable acidity and basicity of Nb-KIT-6 catalysts on ethanol conversion: Experiments and kinetic modeling,” AIChE J. 2017 63:7 2888-2899.

Articles featured inside:

Barforoush, J. M.; Jantz, D. T.; Seuferling, T. E.; Song, K. R.; Cummings, L. C.; Leonard, K. C. “Microwave-assisted synthesis of a nanoamorphous (Ni0.8,Fe0.2) oxide oxygen-evolving electrocatalyst containing only ‘fast’ sites,” J. Mater. Chem. A 2017 5:23 11661-11670. (see page 4)

Bode, C. J.; Chapman, C.; Pennybaker, A.; Subrama-niam, B. “Developing Students’ Understanding of Industrially Relevant Economic and Life Cycle As-sessments,” J. Chem. Edu. 2017 94:11 1798-1801. (see page 9)

Bravo-Suarez, J. J.; Srinivasan, P. D. “Design charac-teristics of in situ and operando ultraviolet-visible and vibrational spectroscopic reaction cells for het-erogeneous catalysis,” Catal. Rev. Sci. Eng. 2017 doi:10.1080/01614940.2017.1360071. (see page 6)

Dou, J.; Sun, Z.; Opalade, A.; Wang, N.; Fu, W.; Tao, F. “Operando chemistry of catalyst surfaces during catalysis,” Chem. Soc. Rev. 2017 46 2001-2027. (see page 7) Jystad, A. M.; Biancardi, A.; Caricato, M. “Simula-tions of Ammonia Adsorption for the Characteriza-tion of Acid Sites in Metal-Doped Amorphous Sili-cates,” J. Phys. Chem. C 2017 121:40 22258-22267. (see page 4) Liu, D.; Chaudhari, R.V.; Subramaniam, B. “Enhanced solubility of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in pro-pane- and propylene-expanded liquids,” AIChE J. Published online Oct. 2017. (see page 7)

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