SEERC FUNDED PROJECTS:
Bio-Fuels
- Biofuel Combustion: 3D Numerical Simulation and Advanced Laser Diagnosis ($28,000)
- Covalent Biomolecule Printing for Light Harvesting Surfaces ($35,000)
- Optimizing Electron Transfer for Biohydrogen Production by Photosynthesis ($35,000)
- Biofuel Combustion: 3D Numerical Simulation and Advanced Laser Diagnosis ($20,784)
- Optimizing Electron Transfer for Biohydrogen Production by Photosynthesis ($40,588)
Participants
Faculty:
Cheng-Xian Lin (Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering),
Zhili Zhang (Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering)
Graduate Student:
Jaya Nanna (Aerospace Engineering)
Other Info
Amount: $28,000
Duration: 8/1/2010 - 5/31/2011
Description
Biofuels, as alternative fuel sources, have gained considerable attention in recent years as the rapid depletion of fossil fuel supplies leads to skyrocket increase in fuel price and global warming concern raises environmental awareness from the public. To advance the effective utilization of biofuels, much fundamental and applied research in their combustion processes are required. Currently, the chemical details of biofuel combustion are poorly understood due to the complicated chemical processes and the limitations of existing diagnostic tools. On the other hand, the implementation of large detailed reaction mechanism for biofuel combustion simulation in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code in today’s computer is not practical as the computational resource requirements are prohibitive. Although progress has been made in reduced mechanism development, the reliability of the available reduced mechanisms under different conditions needs further improvement. Particularly, these mechanisms were validated using only average properties in a reactor for major species. In this multi-year project, we will perform advanced laser diagnosis of the biofuel combustion process, particularly the accurate measurement of intermediate species in a well controlled flame. These experimental data will provide a foundation for the kinetic modeling of biofuel in a combustion process. At the same time, we will perform CFD simulation of the flames in both laminar and turbulent flow regimes. Our goal is to develop validated more suitable reaction mechanism and turbulence model for biofuel combustion under different conditions.
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Participants
Faculty:
Eric Boder (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering),
Paul Frymier (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Graduate Students:
Rosemary Le (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering),
Maryam Raeeszadeh Sarmazdeh (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering),
Sarah Williamson (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Other Info
Amount: $35,000
Duration: 9/1/2010 - 5/31/2011
Description
Functionalization of surfaces with proteins represents a continual interest in nano-biotechnology due to its essential role in a wide range of applications; in particular, the looming energy crisis is driving a great deal of effort toward developing approaches to interface autotroph-derived photosynthetic machinery with surfaces in order to efficiently generate electricity from sunlight. Given the variety of surfaces of interest and the ever-expanding range of proteins to be immobilized, it comes as no surprise that no single technique has been found to work in all cases. A robust, universally-applicable method would therefore dramatically impact several areas of energy science, as well as other disciplines. We recently demonstrated the utility of a recombinant transpeptidase, Staphylococcus aureus Sortase A, for immobilizing, conjugating, oligomerizing, and circularizing a tagged model protein by sequence-specific ligation. Here, we propose to apply this enzyme to create a gentle, robust, predictable means of immobilizing cyanobacterial photosystem I (PSI) on a gold surface by covalent ligation, creating an oriented array of light harvesting complexes capable of generating an electrical current.
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Participants
Faculty:
Paul Frymier (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Lead),
Barry Bruce (Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology)
Graduate Students:
Ify Iwuchukwu (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering),
Natalie Myers (Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology),
Jared Graves (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Other Info
Amount: $35,000
Duration: 7/1/2009 - 6/30/2010
Description
Hydrogen is a particularly useful energy carrier for transportation; it can function as a replacement for petroleum-derived liquid fuels and utilized in a fuel cell without producing carbon dioxide or oxides of nitrogen, and it can be transported easily and efficiently. However, there are no sources of molecular hydrogen on the planet. A little over an hour and a half of the average annual solar insulation rate (89 x 1015 watts) at the surface of the Earth is sufficient to meet the current world energy needs for an entire year. It merely remains to find an efficient and environmentally sustainable way of capturing, storing and utilizing this practically limitless but dilute energy source. We are proposing to characterize and optimize protein-metal hybrid complexes that, when exposed to light, generate hydrogen at a high rate and are temporally and thermally stable. We accomplish this by creating mutagenized complexes of cytochrome c553 and photosystem I from the thermophillic cyanobacterium Thermosynecochoccus elongatus. We engineer new residues into the native complexes to create binding sites similar to those found in green algae and higher plants. This effort is monitored by using laser flash photolysis equipment to probe the effect of genetic modification on the first two steps in the process, complex formation between cytochrome c533 and PSI and the re-reduction rate of the complex after laser-induced photooxidation of PSI. After screening, the best candidates will be used to prepare platinum-PSI composite nanoparticles and used with the best cyt c553 candidates to produce hydrogen by capturing photons from light.
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Participants
Faculty:
Cheng-Xian Lin (Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering),
Zhili Zhang (Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering)
Graduate Student:
Jaya Nanna (Aerospace Engineering)
Other Info
Amount: $20,784
Duration: 1/15/2010 - 6/30/2010
Description
Biofuels, as alternative fuel sources, have gained considerable attention in recent years as the rapid depletion of fossil fuel supplies leads to skyrocket increase in fuel price and global warming concern raises environmental awareness from the public. To advance the effective utilization of biofuels, much fundamental and applied research in their combustion processes are required. Currently, the chemical details of biofuel combustion are poorly understood due to the complicated chemical processes and the limitations of existing diagnostic tools. On the other hand, the implementation of large detailed reaction mechanism for biofuel combustion simulation in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code in today’s computer is not practical as the computational resource requirements are prohibitive. Although progress has been made in reduced mechanism development, the reliability of the available reduced mechanisms under different conditions needs further improvement. Particularly, these mechanisms were validated using only average properties in a reactor for major species. In this multi-year project, we will perform advanced laser diagnosis of the biofuel combustion process, particularly the accurate measurement of intermediate species in a well controlled flame. These experimental data will provide a foundation for the kinetic modeling of biofuel in a combustion process. At the same time, we will perform CFD simulation of the flames in both laminar and turbulent flow regimes. Our goal is to develop validated more suitable reaction mechanism and turbulence model for biofuel combustion under different conditions.
∆ back to top
Participants
Faculty:
Paul Frymier (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Lead),
Barry Bruce (Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology)
Graduate Students:
Ify Iwuchukwu (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering),
Natalie Myers (Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology),
Jared Graves (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Other Info
Amount: $40,588
Duration: 7/1/2008 - 6/30/2009
Description
Hydrogen is a particularly useful energy carrier for transportation; it can function as a replacement for petroleum-derived liquid fuels and utilized in a fuel cell without producing carbon dioxide or oxides of nitrogen, and it can be transported easily and efficiently. However, there are no sources of molecular hydrogen on the planet. A little over an hour and a half of the average annual solar insulation rate (89 x 1015 watts) at the surface of the Earth is sufficient to meet the current world energy needs for an entire year. It merely remains to find an efficient and environmentally sustainable way of capturing, storing and utilizing this practically limitless but dilute energy source. We are proposing to characterize and optimize protein-metal hybrid complexes that, when exposed to light, generate hydrogen at a high rate and are temporally and thermally stable. We accomplish this by creating mutagenized complexes of cytochrome c553 and photosystem I from the thermophillic cyanobacterium Thermosynecochoccus elongatus. We engineer new residues into the native complexes to create binding sites similar to those found in green algae and higher plants. This effort is monitored by using laser flash photolysis equipment to probe the effect of genetic modification on the first two steps in the process, complex formation between cytochrome c533 and PSI and the re-reduction rate of the complex after laser-induced photooxidation of PSI. After screening, the best candidates will be used to prepare platinum-PSI composite nanoparticles and used with the best cyt c553 candidates to produce hydrogen by capturing photons from light.
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