The United States mixes propellants the same way they did in WWII, i.e., with bladed batch mixers. This project optimizes the mixing settings for a safer, bladeless, Dual Asymmetric Centrifuge (DAC) mixer with remote operation capabilities. Specifically, a Design of Experiments (DOE) approach is applied to identify process settings to uniformly mix a mock propellant formulation. Response variables measured include temperature, viscosity, concentration, and mixer motor torque. This study establishes an efficient FlackTek Speedmixer (DAC mixer) procedure for mixing modified double-base propellants.  

This project is from the AAMP-UP summer program, which is a different program than SURF. AAMP-UP is a 10-week summer program that provides STEM undergraduates the chance to participate in national defense and military research. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, MD.

Chemical Unit Operations, Other

• No Major Restriction

AAMP-UP asks that each student applicant have finished 1 semester of higher education, be currently enrolled in a college or university, and graduate after August 2023. In addition, students must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Persons. No prior experience with the U.S. military is required. No summer classes are allowed.

Chemical Engineering

Stephen Beaudoin

This project is focused on quantifying the van der Waals adhesion of energetic particles to surfaces of interest. Better understanding how energetic particles adhere to surfaces can improve explosive detection systems and help enhance the performance of polymer-bonded explosives. Atomic force microscopy is used to directly measure the adhesion between energetic particles and binders.

This project is from the AAMP-UP summer program, which is a different program than SURF. AAMP-UP is a 10-week summer program that provides STEM undergraduates the chance to participate in national defense and military research. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, MD.

Chemical Unit Operations, Chemical Catalysis and Synthesis, Other

• No Major Restriction

AAMP-UP asks that each student applicant have finished 1 semester of higher education, be currently enrolled in a college or university, and graduate after August 2023. In addition, students must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Persons. No prior experience with the U.S. military is required. No summer classes are allowed.

Chemical Engineering

Stephen Beaudoin

Composite solid propellants, consisting of energetic particles embedded in a polymeric binder, are utilized extensively in projectile devices. Additive manufacturing of these propellants is a promising method to enhance their reliability and effectiveness; however, such materials often fail during launch due to insufficient adhesion between components. Hence, it is of utmost importance to maintain a high adhesive force between the particles and the surrounding binder, which would ensure that the required combustion reactions take place even as the projectile moves at high speeds. Thus, we seek to quantify how the adhesive behavior of the particles changes using the enhanced centrifuge method, which implements experimental and computational techniques in order to map apparent centrifugal forces to intermolecular van der Waals forces.

This project is from the AAMP-UP summer program, which is a different program than SURF. AAMP-UP is a 10-week summer program that provides STEM undergraduates the chance to participate in national defense and military research. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, MD.

Chemical Unit Operations, Chemical Catalysis and Synthesis, Other

• No Major Restriction

AAMP-UP asks that each student applicant have finished 1 semester of higher education, be currently enrolled in a college or university, and graduate after August 2023. In addition, students must be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Persons. No prior experience with the U.S. military is required. No summer classes are allowed.

Chemical Engineering

Stephen Beaudoin

This project is supported by CISTAR, an NSF Engineering Research Center headquartered at Purdue
Electrification of industrial processes is being frequently mentioned as an option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy-intensive industries. Electricity is a versatile energy carrier which presents a variety of electrification options. The increasing availability of cheap renewable electricity provides an opportunity to decarbonize energy intensive processes. As part of this decarbonization effort, the commodity chemical industry is an important target due to its large energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions. One potential paradigm for electrification involves replacing the use of steam, generated by burning fossil fuels, as a source of heat in chemical processes to processes with direct electrical heating using renewable energy sources. This project aims to identify and quantify areas where energy is currently transferred by steam can be efficiently transferred by renewable electrification. The target commodity chemicals are ammonia, ethylene, propylene, and methanol.

Students working on this project will also have the opportunity to participate in information sessions, tours and informal mentoring with CISTAR's partner companies.

Purdue students are not eligible for this project. Students must be from outside institutions. Participants must be US Citizens. Students with disabilities, veterans, and those from traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM are encouraged to apply.

More information: https://cistar.us/

Chemical Unit Operations, Chemical Catalysis and Synthesis, Energy and Environment

• Chemical Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Cornelius Masuku

Drinking water contamination is a global problem, and a challenge across North America. In the past decade, numerous chemical spills, wildfires, backflow incidents, and other activities have contaminated drinking water. As a result, many households have encountered water at their faucets that contained high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOC). Often, households are warned not to use the water due to ingestion, inhalation, and sometimes dermal exposure concerns. In some cases though, this water has contacted personal items and home water filters. Personal items have included baby pacifiers, bottles, toys, teething rings, utensils, and other items. If not cleaned thoroughly, these products may release chemicals that reach the user. Separately, home water filters may also be exposed to this highly VOC and SVOC contaminated drinking water but the degree these devices can reduce excessive contamination has gone unstudied. While home water filters are industry tested against low levels of contaminants, no such testing is available for post-disaster scenarios that involve excessive contamination levels. Despite this lacking information, officials have sometimes recommended households rinse personal items with clean tap water or purchase and use home water filter devices. The lack of prior testing inhibits households from knowing if the recommended actions are effective at protecting their health.

This study will develop a better understanding of the degree personal items and home water filters are contaminated by VOCs and SVOCs when exposed to contaminated water. Specific objectives are to: (1) Review the myriad products and types of materials that contact with water, (2) Review VOC/SVOC uptake phenomena associated with the specific plastics identified, (3) Down-select products and conduct VOC/SVOC contamination testing to estimate uptake, (4) Evaluate different practices for removing the contamination from the product. Results will help health officials and households understand whether contaminated products can be used after cleaning or should be discarded.

The student will work with a graduate student to contaminate and then evaluate different cleaning practices on various household items. The project will involve repeating recommended practices issued by public health officials and also evaluating other newer practices. The student will be taught on how to prepare solutions, collect samples, analyze data, and report results. Results are expected to be shared widely with public health officials after the project is completed.

Chemical Unit Operations, Engineering the Built Environment, Environmental Characterization

• No Major Restriction

Strong motivation to learn and apply knowledge.

Lyles School of Civil Engineering

Andrew Whelton

The pandemic, such as COVID-19 crisis, has highlighted the requirement for smart manufacturing in pharmaceuticals. Continuous manufacturing is a highly promising solution given its lower capital cost, smaller footprint, and higher efficiency compared to batch manufacturing. Instead of relying on frequent off-line quality tests of samples from each batch, designing an effective and efficient process with knowledge and optimal control strategies becomes increasingly important. Ultimately, an automated smart system can be built to produce high-quality drug products with minimized errors from human intervention.

In a dry granulation tableting line, the powders are transformed into granules before being compressed into tablets. The granulation step can increase the powder flowability by enlarging particle size and improving the powder blend's content uniformity by minimizing segregation. The goals of this project include (1) investigating the impact of granulation on final tablet qualities and building high-fidelity models using first principles and machine learning, and (2) developing soft sensors to predict critical quality attributes such as tensile strength in real time. (3) Implementing model-based process control strategy to control end-to-end pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. All the research works will be conducted in Purdue's newly installed tablet manufacturing pilot plant at the FLEX Lab in Discovery Park.

Big Data/Machine Learning, Chemical Unit Operations, Other

• No Major Restriction

Basic skills in programming (Python or MATLAB) and powder characterization experience would be a plus, but they are not necessary. All students are welcome if they are interested in hands-on experiments and pharmaceutical processes.

Chemical Engineering

Gintaras Reklaitis

The continuous mode of manufacturing for pharmaceutical products represents the future of the pharmaceutical industry; it ultimately leads to cheaper and safer drugs, as well as a more reliable drug supply chain. To realize these advantages, however, effective fault detection and diagnostic systems need to be in place, so intervention strategies can be implemented in case the system goes malfunctions.

In this project, we will investigate the ribbon splitting phenomenon in a roller compactor, which is a phenomenon can adversely affect that quality of the product granules coming out of the roller compactor. Little is known about its impact on the product quality as well as the predictability of the phenomenon. The ability to predict this phenomenon can be a boon to effective implementation of condition-based maintenance strategies that have been accepted to be a critical requirement for the successful shift to continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing. This study requires particle technology expertise, which will be provided by Prof. Marcial Gonzalez in Mechanical Engineering, as well as process systems engineering expertise provided by Prof. Rex Reklaitis and Prof. Zoltan Nagy in Chemical Engineering.

Big Data/Machine Learning, Chemical Unit Operations, Material Processing and Characterization, Other

• No Major Restriction

Python programming/coding experience is a PLUS, but not required, although enthusiasm to learn is a must. Students interested in a career in powder processing and/or pharmaceutical manufacturing, are encouraged to apply.

Davidson School of Chemical Engineering

Gintaras Reklaitis