ASTM International announced today that four graduate students each won $10,000 scholarships for their studies in fields where technical standards play a crucial role. This year’s winners were chosen from a competitive pool of more than a dozen applications.

A new chemical conversion process developed by Purdue University researchers could transform the world’s polyolefin waste, a form of plastic, into useful products, such as clean fuels and other items. The conversion process has been developed by a research team led by Linda Wang, the Maxine Spencer Nichols Professor in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering.

We are thrilled to be part of this amazing project that cleans our planet!

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — When people talk about sustainability, jet fuel doesn’t come up in the conversation. Unless it is Gozdem Kilaz who is talking.

A knowledge gap in the development of alternative aviation fuels led to the creation of the Fuel Laboratory of Renewable Energy (FLORE), a new interdisciplinary research lab in Purdue’s Potter Engineering Center. Gozdem Kilaz, assistant professor in Purdue Polytechnic’s School of Engineering Technology and director of the lab, first noticed the gap when she was a postdoctoral research assistant.

The certification process for alternative fuels for the aviation industry is especially rigorous, making it difficult for new fuels to come to market. A graduate student in Purdue Polytechnic’s School of Engineering Technology hopes to make the process easier by constructing bridges between fuel chemistry and performance.

A Purdue Polytechnic Institute professor will be working on one of six Purdue University projects recently funded by the U.S. Navy. Six interdisciplinary research teams have received $2.7 million in grants of $450,000 each as part of the U.S. Navy Enterprise Partnership Teaming with Universities for National Excellence (NEPTUNE) program. Launched by Purdue and the Navy in 2014, the program aims to help the military branch convert half of its energy consumption to alternative sources, including biofuels, by 2020.

The research projects of Purdue engineering technology professor Gozdem Kilaz are truly diverse, extending from Indiana's cornfields to U.S. Navy aircraft. But it's that diversity, Kilaz says, that originally pulled her to the field of chemical engineering, leading to projects in which she has collaborated with colleagues around the world.