Events & Announcements:

Nan Yi Receives Support for Research Project

The Graduate Student Research Awards Committee at Tufts recently awarded Nan Yi financial support for his project, "Hydrogen Production from Decomposition of Formic Acid over Au-Ceria." Nan has been investigating nanoscale ceria with gold as new generation catalysts for the steam reforming of methanol. This financial support will allow Nan to continue his research, to both optimize the amount of gold and determine the practical conditions under which this reaction can be implemented in a PEM-based fuel cell.

Nan Yi Awarded Travel Grant from AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division

Congratulations to Nan Yi, a 4th-year Ph.D. student in the Nano-CEL research group. He was awarded a travel grant from the AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division, to present his work on the steam reforming of methanol on gold catalysts at the upcoming AIChE annual meeting in Nashville. Nan will be honored at the CRE Division dinner on Monday, November 9.

Professor Stephanopoulos Elected AIChE Fellow

Professor Flytzani-Stephanopoulos was elected Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. She will be recognized for this significant achievement during the 2009 AIChE Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN, next November.

Professor Stephanopoulos Elected AAAS Fellow

Professor Flytzani-Stephanopoulos was inducted as an AAAS Fellow at the recent Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, IL, February 13-16, 2009.

Group Has a Top Cited Article in Elsevier

An article published by the group in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental in 2005 is among the top 50 most cited articles published in Elsevier’s Catalysis journals in the past 5 years (2003-2007). "Activity and stability of low-content gold-cerium oxide catalysts for the water-gas shift reaction" has been cited over 70 times since it was first published in the journal in 2005.

Co-authors of this paper along with Professor Stephanopoulos are former Ph.D. students Qi Fu (now at BASF) and Weiling Deng (currently a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory), and Research Professor Howard Saltsburg.

A reception for the top cited authors will be held at the 14th International Congress on Catalysis in Seoul, Korea in July.

Prof. Stephanopoulos Wins IPMI Award

The International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) has selected Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos to receive the 2008 Henry J. Albert award, which it gives annually to a researcher in recognition of outstanding theoretical and experimental contributions to the science and technology of precious metals. This lifetime achievement award consists of a palladium medal in the likeness of Mr. Albert and a cash stipend.  Professor Stephanopoulos is recognized for her investigations in the field of clean energy technologies; specifically in the use of novel precious metal nanoscale catalysts for air pollution control and for clean hydrogen production. In this photo, courtesy of IPMI, Prof. Stephanopoulos receives the award from Dr. Robert Ianniello of BASF Catalysts LLC, sponsor of the award, at the annual IPMI conference in Phoenix, AZ, on June 10, 2008.

Lab Awarded New Instrument from Micromeritics

The Nanocatalysis and Energy Laboratory has been selected as the recipient of a new AutoChem II 2920 catalyst characterization system from Micromeritics as part of the company’s Instrument Grant Program. This is the sixth instrument award Micromeritics has given as part of its program to provide particle characterization instruments to research groups for exemplary research projects. The NanoCEL group plans to make good use of this instrument in their catalyst characterization, structure-function evaluation, and catalyst development efforts.

Prof. Stephanopoulos to moderate Clean Energy session at AAAS annual meeting

Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos has organized a symposium on Nanocatalysis for Clean Energy and Sustainability that will be held at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, February 14-18, 2008.

For information about the symposium speakers and topics please click here.

Weiling Deng receives AIChE-CRE Division Travel Award

Congratulations to Weiling Deng, a 5th-year Ph.D. student in the Nano-CEL group. She was awarded a travel grant from the AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division. This award is granted to students in recognition of their graduate work, so they present their research at the annual meeting. Weiling will be honored at the CRE Division dinner during the 2007 Annual AIChE meeting in Salt Lake City.

Brian Ricks is 1^st Dean’s Fellow in Sustainable Energy

Brian Ricks is the first recipient of the Dean’s Fellowship in Sustainable Energy. He is the newest member of the Nano-CEL group. Brian is a 2006 graduate of Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, where he majored in Chemical Engineering, with minor in Mathematics and Computational Science. While an undergraduate, Brian interned at Plug Power, a well-known fuel cell company in Latham, New York, where he contributed to the design and implementation of a new hydrogen recirculator device to reclaim unused hydrogen from the exhaust of a fuel cell. Before coming to Tufts, Brian worked as an engineer with Mettler-Toledo Thornton.

Brian will be working on his Ph.D. thesis in the general area of fuel processing for fuel cells.

Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos Spends Sabbatical Year at ETH in Zürich

Professor Flytzani-Stephanopoulos spent the 2006-07 academic year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. There, she interacted with Professor Alfons Baiker and his group of students and senior researchers in the area of heterogeneous catalysis of gold, specifically for the selective oxidation of alcohols and for the water-gas shift and fuel oxidation reactions for energy applications.

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