Research
Research activities in the department vary widely, covering most pressing areas in the chemical engineering field today.
News
3 Engineering Faculty Members Receive DARPA MTO Award
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has presented the Microsystems Technology Office Award to three faculty members from the College of Engineering. Drs. A.B.M. Tahidul Haque and Sree Kalyan Patiballa,...
Research in Orbit: UA to Partner with Air Force Research Labs on Satellite Fuel
In a recently awarded project, the Alabama Materials Institute at The University of Alabama will aid the Air Force Research Laboratory in developing technology related to a new satellite propellant. The $6 million ASCENT propellant project will see the University working with federal laboratories and industry partners to fully develop this new technology.
2 UA Students Offered Hollings Scholarships
University of Alabama students Zachary Griffith, of Pittsburgh, and Jesse Park, of Burr Ridge, Illinois, were selected for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship.
RESEARCH AREAS
Research efforts are concentrated in biotechnology; computational; polymers and soft materials; electronic materials and devices; and energy and the environment.
- “Green” Chemistry
- 3‐D Printing
- Advanced Materials
- Advanced Polymers and Materials
- Algae Cultivation and Algal Biomass Utilization
- Antibody-Drug Conjugates
- Assembly of Nanomaterials
- Bio/Nanosensors
- Biochemical Engineering for Production of Chemicals
- Biocompatibility and toxicology of nanoparticles
- Bioengineering
- Biomaterials
- Block Copolymers
- Catalysis
- Cell‐Material Interactions
- CO2 Capture Processes
- Computational Screening of CO2 Solvents
- Conjugated Polymers
- Controlled Synthesis
- Drug Delivery
- Drug Discovery
- Drug Resistance
- Electrochemical Engineering
- Electrochemical Engineering for Nanomaterials
- Environmental Catalysis Modeling
- Environmental Remediation
- Fuels
- Functional Material Interfaces for Soft Robotics
- Functionalized Materials for Separation and Catalysis
- Functionalized Membranes for Water Purification
- Green Cosmetics
- High Temperature Coatings
- In‐situ IR Spectroscopy of Thin Film Deposition
- Infrared Spectroscopy
- Interfacial Phenomena
- Intravaginal Rings for (Trans)mucosal Delivery of Drugs
- Ionic Liquids
- Magnetic Hyperthermia
- Manufacturing Cost Modeling
- Materials Characterization
- Mechanical Behavior
- Medical and Health Properties of Berries and Berry Extracts
- Membrane Fouling
- Metabolic Engineering
- Metals
- Microbicides
- Microchannel Devices
- Molecular Sieves
- Mucoadhesive Gels
- Nanodevices
- Nanofibers
- Nanomaterials
- Nanostructures
- Nanotherapeutics
- Natural Products
- Oncology
- Oxidation
- Pharmaceuticals
- Photobioreactor Design
- Polymer Templating
- Polymers
- Process Control
- Process Intensification
- Reaction Engineering
- Sensing
- Simulations of Nanomaterials
- Single-use Bioprocessing Films
- Soil Remediation
- Stretchable Electronics
- Surface Chemistry
- Surface Engineering
- Surface Science
- Surface/Interfacial Engineering
- Synthesis and Characterization of Inorganic Solids
- Synthetic Biology
- Thermodynamics
- Thin-Films
- Tissue Engineering
- Toxicological Evaluation of Novel Materials
- Translational Medicine
- Transport Phenomena in Polymeric Systems
- Tumor Microenvironment
- Vaccines
- Vibrational Spectroscopy
- Water
- Water Treatment
- Wearable Electronics
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: 1026 H.M. Comer
Contact: H. Hohyun Sun; hsun36@ua.edu ChBE office: (205) 348-9140
| Date | Speaker, University/Institute | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, August 21, 2025 | Dr. Yuping Bao, UA | Graduate Program Overview |
| Thursday, August 28, 2025 | Peter Kofinas, U Maryland | Functional Polymers for Low Temperature Lithium-Ion Batteries and Anti-Adhesion Biomaterials |
| Thursday, September 4, 2025 | Steven Wrenn, Virginia Tech | Bursting Bubbles, Bio-colloids, and Bilayers |
| Thursday, September 11, 2025 | Rajamani Gounder, Purdue | Dynamic Interactions Between Copper Active Sites in Zeolites During NOx Pollution Abatement Catalysis |
| Thursday, September 18, 2025 | Chinedum Osuji, U of Pennsylvannia | Perfecting Structural Order and Controlling Mass Transport in Nanostructured Soft Materials |
| Thursday, September 25, 2025 | Dohyung Kim, U of Pennyslvannia | Heterogeneities in Chemical Activation and Catalytic Transformations |
| Thursday, October 2, 2025 | Dr. Gennady Gor, New Jersey Institute of Technology | Tiny Pores, Huge Moduli: Probing Nanoporous Materials with Ultrasound and Molecular Modeling |
| Thursday, October 9, 2025 | Nian Liu, Georgia Tech | Nano- and Microscale Material and Reactor Engineering for Electrochemical Energy Storage |
| Thursday, October 16, 2025 | Carl Laird, Carnegie Mellon University | Systems, Surrogates, Solutions: Optimization and Machine Learning for Decision-Making at Scale |
| Thursday, October 23, 2025 | Todd Przybycien, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) | Sustainable Production of Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies |
| Thursday, October 30, 2025 | Jai Hyun Koh, KIST | Ion-conducting polymers for selective CO2 conversion to chemicals and fuels |
| Thursday, November 20, 2025 | Christos Maravelias, Princeton | Systems Engineering for Renewable Energy System Design and Operation |
| Thursday, December 4, 2025 | David Nielsen, Arizona State University | Towards carbon efficient and carbon negative chemical production using ‘microbial cell factories’ |