College of Engineering Spring 2023 Activity Roundup

The College of Engineering was a hub of research and collaboration in the Spring Term. Below is a summary of the publications , sponsored research and other activity in the last several months.

Notable Publications

Michel Barsoum, PhD,Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering, published “Electronic Structure of 1D Lepidocrocite TiO2 as Revealed by Optical Absorption and Photoelectron Spectroscopy” in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C . The article describes the scalable, one-pot syntheses of one-dimensional, titania lepidocrocite microfilaments by reacting titanium compound with tetraalkylammonium hydroxide, creating one-dimensional nanofilaments.

Zhiwei Chen, PhD, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, published “Context-aware trajectory prediction for autonomous driving in heterogeneous environments” in Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering .

Hao Cheng, PhD, associate professor of materials science and engineering, published “Bioresponsive Immunotherapeutic Materials” in Advance Materials . This review highlights the design principles of bioresponsive immunotherapeutic materials and discusses the critical roles of controlled release of immunoactive agents from bioresponsive materials in recruiting, housing, and manipulating immune cells for evoking desired immune responses.

Arvin Ebrahimkhanlou, PhD, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, published “A graph-based method for quantifying crack patterns on reinforced concrete shear walls,” in the Journal of Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering with Ph.D. student Pedram Bazrafshan.The paper uses graph theory and artificial intelligence to extract features from crack images to quantify structural damage.

Yury Gogotsi, PhD, D.Sc., Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Distinguished University Professor, Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, authored or contributed to more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers including papers published in Nature Energy, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications , Science, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano,and other top journals. He (along with DNI students and group members) has continued to produce publications almost weekly on topics such as MXenes for tissue engineering, aerogels, methods in energy storage, MXene films in clinical processes, and low-cost synthesis processes for the MXene precursors, MAX phases, which lend to promoting mass production and more viable commercialization opportunities. The first publication on MXenes was produced a decade ago in Advanced Materials (2013) and is now their most cited paper in the past 3 years. The first review of MXenes is the #2 most cited in this top materials journal with IF=32. MXenes were celebrated by the journal on the occasion of the 10^thanniversary and a virtual issue was assembled.

Charles Haas, PhD,LD Betz Professor of Environmental Engineering, co-authored “Identifying and aggregating high-quality pathogen data: a new approach for potable reuse regulatory development,” in Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology . The paper develops a framework for identifying and incorporating high-quality datasets on pathogens in wastewater from different methods, labs, and sizes into a single, aggregated distributions.

Yong-Jie Hu, PhD, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, published “Mining of lattice distortion, strength, and intrinsic ductility of refractory high entropy alloys” in npj Computational Materials . This work presents a physics-informed statistical model to efficiently produce high-throughput lattice distortion predictions for refractory non-dilute/high-entropy alloys in a 10-element composition space.

Christopher Li, PhD, professor of materials science and engineering, published “Helical Crystals in Aliphatic Copolyesters: From Chiral Amplification to Mechanical Property Enhancement” in ACS Macro Letters . This study demonstrates a bottom-up strategy for achieving helical crystals via chiral amplification in copolyesters by incorporating a small amount of (D)-isosorbide into semicrystalline polyester, poly(ethylene brassylate) (PEB). The principle outlined here could apply to the design of strong and tough materials.

Li also published “Fabrication of Surface Polymer Brushes Via Thin Film Crystallization and Solvent Annealing” in Macromolecular Rapid Communications . In this work, thin film crystallization is utilized to fabricate 2D polymer crystals on flat surfaces. Subsequent chemical tethering leads to polymer brushes that retain the original morphology of the crystals with high fidelity. Furthermore, it is shown that the grafting density of the polymer brushes fabricated using this method depends on the chain end distribution on the top/bottom surfaces of the crystal, which can be facilely controlled by annealing the crystals at various nonsolvent media.

Caroline Schauer, PhD, Margaret C. Burns Chair in Engineering and Interim Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, published “Post-modification of electrospun chitosan fibers” in Polymer Engineering and Science . In this study, a facile post-modification processing method for chitosan is introduced that circumvents the need to perform bulk modification prior to electrospinning, and therefore new spinning conditions.

Wei-Heng Shih, PhD, professor of materials science and engineering, published “Stabilization of methylammonium lead iodide via SiO2 coating for photodetectors” in the Journal of Materials Research. This study demonstrates improvement in stability of methylammonium lead iodide perovskite suspension and dried films against heat and water through the addition of tetraethyl orthosilicate.

Sponsored Research

Patrick Gurian, PhD,professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, received funding from the Plastic and Pipe Fittings Association for the project “Plumbing Flow Rates and Nitrification.” The study conducted a survey to identify areas of consensus and disagreement in managing building water systems, revealing that more than 95% of experts agreed that current plumbing codes are not adequate and return loop temperature should be monitored.

Steven May, PhD, professor and department head of materials science and engineering, Megan Creighton , PhD, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, and Yong-Jie Hu , PhD, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, have received a two-year NSF-FuSe (Future of Semiconductors) grant to develop research capabilities and collaborations centered around germanium oxide-based semiconductors that are of interest for applications such as power electronics and infrared detection.

Awards and Accolated

In recognition of his lifetime of research achievement in materials science, Yury Gogotsi, PhD , Distinguished University and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor, will be awarded the Jan Czochralski Award from the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS).