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Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Research

Research activities in the department vary widely, covering most pressing areas in the chemical engineering field today.

News

Engineering Faculty Awarded $3.07 Million by Department of Defense for Hybridization of Powertrain

  TUSCALOOSA, Ala. —  Researchers from The University of Alabama’s Center for Advanced Vehicle Technologies in the College of Engineering received $3.07 million from the U.S. Department of Defense in...

NASA Launches LunaRecycle Challenge; UA Serves as Allied Organization

NASA announced the launch of the LunaRecycle Challenge on Monday, Sept. 30, offering $3 million in prizes for innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions with The University...

Group photo in shelby hall

NSF-funded Summer Program Grants Research Experience to Local Students and Educators

This summer, Dr. Steven Weinman hosted a six-week summer program for undergraduate and graduate students from Stillman College, Shelton State Community College, The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Lawson...

RESEARCH AREAS

Research efforts are concentrated in biotechnology; computational; polymers and soft materials; electronic materials and devices; and energy and the environment.

Laboratories

One of the biggest assets to the department is the 25-foot-tall distillation column, located in the high-bay area of Bevill.

One of only a few of its kind, this $105,000 glass tower was donated by alumnus Ralph Lewis, vice president of sales of Texaco, and the Texaco Corp. Students gain first-hand experience with its controls, design and operation. In the 1,200-square-foot high-bay area, students work with a gas chromatograph, reaction vessels, a computer-controlled batch still interfaced to a Camile data acquisition and control system, and a steady-state glass still. Students spend a good portion of their summer Operations Laboratory performing experiments with the distillation column.

SEMINARS

Spring 2025 Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Seminar Series

Time: 11:00 AM to 11:50 AM, Thursdays, Central Time
Location: SERC 1013

Contact: Zhongyang Wang; zhongyang.wang@ua.edu ChBE office: (205) 348-6619

Date Speaker University/Institute
January 16, 2025 Dr. Yuping Bao
Graduate Program Overview
UA
January 23, 2025 Dr. Shrihari Sankarasubramanian
Electrochemical Engineering at the Space Frontier – In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Systems for Missions to Mars Seminar
The University of Texas at San Antonio
January 30, 2025 Dr. Karthish Manthiram
Electrification and Decarbonization of Chemical Synthesis
California Institute of Technology
February 6, 2025 Dr. Goli Jalilvand,
Toward Sustainable Energy Storage with Cellulose-based Separators for Lithium-Ion Batteries and Beyond
University of South Carolina 
February 13, 2025 Dr. Cassandra Porter,
Brush Active-Layer Membranes: Growing Membranes Bottom-Up
Auburn
February 20, 2025
February 27, 2025 Dr. Bradley Harris
Catalyzing Careers: Inspiring Engineering Students for a Sustainable Future
University of Tennessee Chattanooga
March 6, 2025 Dr. Adam Weber
Importance of Transport in Electrochemical Energy-Conversion Technologies
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
March 13, 2025 UA Spring Break (no Class)
March 20, 2025 Dr. Jeffrey McCutcheon
The Materials We Leave Behind: How Manufacturing Research can Expand Material Options for Membranes for Water, Gas, and Ion Separations
University of Connecticut
March 27, 2025 Dr. Bruce Locke
Design and Development of Gas-Liquid Nonthermal Plasma Reactors for Chemical Processing
FAMU-FSU
April 3, 2025 ChBE Advisory Board Meeting
April 10, 2025 Dr. Shannon Boettcher
The Chemistry and Physics of Bipolar Membranes
with Applications in Water, Energy, and Decarbonization
University of California, Berkeley
April 17, 2025 Dr. Andrea Hodge
Accelerated Discovery of the Processing Genome for Nickel Superalloys
University of Southern California
April 24, 2025 Dr. Kenneth K. S. Lau
Interfacial Engineering of Electrochemical Conversion Systems using Chemical Vapor Deposition of Polymers
Rowan University