Research Feature
Hydrogen has long been seen as a possible renewable fuel source, held out of reach for full-scale adoption by production costs and inefficiencies. Researchers in the Weimer Group are working to address this by using solar thermal processing to drive high-temperature chemical reactions that produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be used to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
New research published in Nature Materials from Associate Professor Tanja Cuk and colleagues sheds light on a fundamental chemical reaction — the breaking apart of water to produce a molecular fuel such as hydrogen. Cuk is faculty in the Department of Chemistry and the Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE) and is a Fellow in the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).
Hayden Fowler, a graduate student in Gallogly Professor Timothy White’s Responsive and Programmable Materials Group, is the first author on a research paper published in Advanced Materials concerning the temperature-independent electrical actuation of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), which are soft, stimuli-responsive materials with potential applications in soft robotics, artificial muscles and more.
The proliferation of plastic products has created an environmental challenge: what should be done with unusable, discarded plastic waste that can harm the environment? Faculty from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, Hydrogenolysis for Upcycling of Polyesters and Mixed Plastics, to address this serious environmental issue.
CU Boulder is a founding partner of a major National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center (STC): the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand (IMOD). The center represents a research partnership spanning 11 universities led by the University of Washington.
The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ18 has received a $2 million gift from The Anschutz Foundation to support the university’s diverse research in aerospace and national defense—from tracking and protecting satellites in orbit to improving the security of mobile devices.
The COSINC facility has given Jared Lewis, a junior in mechanical engineering, opportunities that he might not have ever experienced as an undergraduate.
While the pandemic added an extra layer of difficulty on top of the normal challenges of launching a center-scale research initiative, leadership at the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ18 say a $15 million NASA funded institute around space habitats that began here in 2019 has hit many of its early goals.
New research led by the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ18 has uncovered the engineering secrets behind what makes fish fins so strong yet flexible. The team’s insights could one day lead to new designs for robotic surgical tools or even airplane wings that change their shape with the push of a button.
Researchers in chemical and biological engineering have developed a platform which can quickly identify common mutations on the SARS-CoV-2 virus that allow it to escape antibodies and infect cells.