Events

(Please be advised that signing a NDA will be required for attending this seminar)

ABSTRACT:  The Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation by anaerobic bacteria from the genus Clostridium was one of the first large-scale industrial bioprocesses, operating globally for the production of acetone during the first half of the 20^th Century. Feedstock and product recovery costs prevented the ABE process from remaining profitable and acetone production was overtaken by the developing petroleum industry.

ABSTRACT:   Nanotechnology offers highly customizable platforms for producing minimally invasive and programmable strategies to diagnose and treat cancer. Advances in this field have demonstrated that nanoparticles can enhance specificity of anti-cancer agents, respond to tumour-specific cues, and direct the visualization of biological targets in vivo.

ABSTRACT:  The rigidity of our skeleton is due to reinforcement with nano-sized minerals of biological apatite.  Theories of skeletal apatite nucleation include initiation by the organic matrix (collagen and non-collagenous proteins), and increasing the phosphate concentration by hydrolysis of phosphoric acid monoesters.  An enzyme that has been attributed to skeletal mineralization - tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) - is known to increase inorganic phosphate concentration by catalyzing phosphoric acid monoester hydrolysis.  However, the substrate for TNAP in

ABSTRACT:  We propose a processing alternative for replacing the traditional and environmentally dangerous solvents (as monoethanolamine, diethanolamine) in the process of CO2 capture. We use a computer aided molecular design (CAMD) methodology for exploring the use of ionic liquids (ILs) as solvents for CO2 capture. The CAMD formulation is solved as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, the objective is to obtain an optimal molecular structure of an ionic liquid for CO2 capture from a post-combustion (PC) gas stream (GS).

ABSTRACT:  Polymers and other materials that are used in contact with biological fluids such as blood are prone to protein adsorption and cell interactions. A protein layer quickly forms at the surface of the material and can influence the subsequent adhesion of platelets, leukocytes, other cells and microbes. For medical devices this can lead to numerous complications including coagulation, thrombosis (blood clotting) and infection, among others.

ABSTRACT:  Advanced lithium ion battery electrodes experience large volume changes caused by concentration changes within the host particles during charging and discharging. Electrode failure, in the form of fracture or decrepitation, can occur as a result of repeated volume changes. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of our recent work on understanding the evolution of concentration, stress, and strain energy within a spherically- or cylindrically-shaped electrode element under various charging-discharging conditions.

ABSTRACT:  Mid-December 2014 is set to be the historical launch of the first commercial fuel-cell vehicle, heralding a transition from fossil-fueled vehicles to cleaner hydrogen-fed vehicles. Despite this significant milestone in making, there is an aggressive approach for further reduction in the cost of the polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) stacks while maintaining/ improving its electrochemical performance.

ABSTRACT:  Stimuli-responsive degradation (SRD) or cleavage of dynamic covalent bonds in response to external stimuli is a promising property in the development of polymer-based multifunctional nanomaterials. These nanomaterials are designed to degrade upon the cleavage of dynamic linkages in response to single or multi-stimuli, thus tuning lower critical solution temperature, controlling nanoparticle morphologies, fabricating highly-ordered nanopores, and enhancing controlled drug release.

ABSTRACT:  In order to solve the energy crisis, we need high-impact technology solutions which allow us to make and use energy products in a way that provides a similar standard of living but with a much-reduced environmental footprint. It's not easy.  Any new approaches will have to not only be proven to be less damaging to the environment, but they must be politically and socially acceptable, and they must still be profitable enough such that the industry actually wants to try them.

ABSTRACT:  The exogenous delivery of RNA into tissues has shown great potential for the treatment of destructive diseases by therapeutically controlling the expression of genes within those tissues.  A key need for the broad application of RNA for therapeutic biomedical engineering applications is the development of safe and effective delivery systems capable of targeting specific cells within the body.