Weihong Qiu will be presenting a seminar titled, Shining Light on the Molecular Mechanism of Microtubule Motors on April 1, 2014 at 4pm in LPSC 402.
February Food Drive Final Totals
Thanks to all your generous donations, Chemistry was able to collect the equivalent of 300 pounds of food!
Jeff Mihailoff (Fortebio) Seminar
April 8, 4pm seminar LPSC 402 followed by pizza reception:
Jeff Mihailoff (Fortebio) “Fortebio’s Octet Red Biosensor Technology for OSU”
Sandra Loesgen (OSU) “Viral Sweet spots – biosensor technology to identify inhibitor binding to Hepatitis C surface proteins”
Chem Program Offers Internship Opportunities to Undergrads
Good morning. I would like to alert you to a new program we have set up for our undergrads to provide internship opportunities in companies throughout Oregon for them during the summer. We hope to continue to grow this list to become the “one stop” shopping for our majors when looking for summer internship experiences using their chemistry skills.
http://chemistry.oregonstate.edu/content/osu-chemistry-internship-2014-summer-program
Please alert any Chemistry majors that are interested in this opportunity to the website. The deadline for summer 2014 applications from students is April 15.
If you are aware of a company looking for interns who is not listed, please direct them to the website where there is information on how to get their information listed.
Research Opportunities Week for Postdoctoral Researchers
I would like to inform you about the TUM Research Opportunities Week for postdoctoral researchers, which will take place October 20th through 24th 2014.
This event, which is fully financed by TUM, offers up to 50 postdocs from around the world the opportunity to get to know faculty and explore research facilities at our university during a five days stay in Munich. The most promising participants will be offered a TUM University Foundation Fellowship to spend one year as a postdoc at our university. Application deadline is May 30th 2014.
If you can think of any young researchers of your acquaintance that might be interested in this, please spread the information:
http://www.tum.de/en/research/postdocs/research-opportunities-week/
For more information, please contact Dr. Christiane Haupt – Tel.: +49.89.289.25235, email:
haupt@zv.tum.de.
Limited Submission Funding Opportunity: NSF – SNM 2014
The Research Office, Office for Research Development is requesting letters of intent for the NSF – Scalable Nanomanufacturing (SNM) program.
Deadline to submit letters of intent to the Research Office: Monday, April 21, 2014
Synopsis of Program:
NSF announces a fourth year of a program on collaborative research and education in the area of scalable nanomanufacturing, including the long-term societal implications of the large-scale implementation of nanomanufacturing innovations. This program is in response to and is a component of the National Nanotechnology Initiative Signature Initiative: Sustainable Nanomanufacturing – Creating the Industries of the Future (http://www.nano.gov/node/611.) Although many nanofabrication techniques have demonstrated the ability to fabricate small quantities of nanomaterials, nanostructures and nanodevices for characterization and evaluation purposes, the emphasis of the scalable nanomanufacturing program is on research to overcome the key scientific and technological barriers that prevent the production of useful nanomaterials, nanostructures, devices and systems at an industrially relevant scale, reliably, and at low cost and within environmental, health and safety guidelines. Competitive proposals will incorporate three elements in their research plans:
- A persuasive case that the nanomaterials, nanostructures, devices or systems to be produced have or are likely to have sufficient demand to justify eventual scale-up;
- A clearly identified set of research issues for science and engineering solutions that must be addressed to enable the production of high quality nano-enabled products at low cost; and
- A compelling research plan with clear research objectives and approaches to overcome the identified research issues.
Proposals submitted to this program should consider addressing aspects of the nanomanufacturing value chain:
- Novel scalable processes and techniques for large-area or continuous manufacturing of nano-scale structures and their assembly/integration into higher order systems;
- Fundamental scientific research in well-defined technical areas that are compellingly justified as approaches to overcome critical barriers to scale-up and integration; and
- Design principles for production systems leading to nanomanufacturing platforms; identification of metrology, instrumentation, standards and control methodologies needed for process control and to assess quality and yield.
Competitive proposals are expected to address the training and education of students in nanomanufacturing. While not required, the involvement of an industrial partner or partners is strongly encouraged and has the potential to significantly strengthen a proposal.
Guidance for preparation of letters of intent to the Research Office: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/nsf-snm
NSF – SNM program information: http://nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14544/nsf14544.htm
Information: Mary Phillips, Director, Office for Research Development at mary.phillips@oregonstate.edu
Submit letters of intent electronically to Debbie Delmore at debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu
International Students at OSU: A Faculty Guide
This guide for faculty is the first in a suite of resources to help you in supporting international students, both inside and outside the classroom.
On Thursday, May 22, 2014, panel sessions entitled “Tips for working with International Students in your Classroom” and “Tips for working with International Students in Advising” will be held at the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Spring Symposium. [Details regarding the Symposium will appear on the CTL web site as they become available: http://oregonstate.edu/ctl/]
If you have questions about the Toolkit, please contact CTL@oregonstate.edu. You may view an electronic version of this faculty guide at http://oregonstate.edu/ctl/international-students-oregon-state-university-faculty-guide.
Living in a New, Colorful Materials World
College of Science Chemistry Professor Mas Subramanian will discuss the discovery of new pigments with energy-saving applications in the 2014 F.A. Gilfillan Memorial Lecture May 6 at 6:15 pm at the LaSells Stewart Center. Subramanian is the 2013 recipient of the F.A. Gilfillan Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Science recognizing College of Science faculty who have a record of distinguished scholarship and scientific accomplishments.
Undergraduate of the Quarter – Fall 2013 – Chadd Armstrong
Chadd Armstrong has been selected as one of our Undergrads of the Quarter for Fall 2013. Chadd is a non-traditional student who returned to school after the 2008 economic downturn. Having moved around the Pacific Northwest growing up, he graduated from Lebanon Union High before following a professional career in other states. Embarking initially at LBCC seeking a diagnostics imaging certificate, his General Chemistry Instructor there (Ron Backus) inspired him – “Chemistry is the physics of the small.” He went on to take Organic Chemistry from Brigid Backus who further motivated him to pursue a higher level of education. Since transferring to OSU, Chadd states that he has especially enjoyed KC Walsh in Physics and Claudia Maier in Chemistry. Professor Maier’s CH 422 course was “very clear, precise” and “methodical.” He has also enjoyed ATS 320 “Man’s Impact on Climate” which he describes as a very interesting and worthwhile class. He became involved in research, while still at LBCC, during a summer research fellowship at Trillium Fiber Fuels where became acquainted with Professor & Reser Faculty Scholar Vince Remcho (one of the four co-founders of this company). While at OSU, Chadd has been conducting research in Professor Remcho’s lab. Research provides Chadd with that day to day exposure to real-world chemistry problems that helps to tie everything together. He enjoys working with grad students because the experience has helped grow his confidence in his own abilities. From his prior work experiences, he has brought more computer programming into the Remcho lab. Graduating this June, he will have been fortunate enough, from scholarships and fellowships, to finish without having taken on any debt. After graduation, he plans to go on to Grad School to get a PhD in Chemistry on the west coast. He really enjoys research in applied fields and his long term goal is to work in a national lab or a university where he can conduct research and teach. In his free time, Chadd likes to travel, visiting family and friends, all of who are very important to him.
Chadd describes OSU as a “fantastic school” and he feels very invested here. We are so grateful to have talented students like Chadd as Chemistry majors and we want to congratulate him on his successes. It is future alumni like Chadd that make OSU Chemistry an amazing place!
Recycling Battery Parts Makes for Greener Earth
Guest Bloggers: Kim Thackray & Mike Lerner
Have you looked around and noticed that more and more items are powered by lithium ion batteries? All cell phones and laptops use lithium ion batteries, and automobiles and even ships are moving toward this technology. Advances in technology are making these batteries (and the products they power) smaller, lighter, and longer-lasting—but what happens to the batteries once they have outlived their usefulness?
The current technology for handling used batteries follows 2 tracks: batteries are either ground up in order to extract the expensive components (nickel, cobalt), or…they go to the landfill. Good earth stewardship demands a better, lower-energy alternative. Dr. Steve Sloop (OSU, 1996), founder of OnTo Technology, is in the forefront of this field, helping to change the battery waste flow into a battery resource flow.
Working closely with researchers and students at Willamette University and OSU, OnTo Technology is developing direct recycling processes that entail disassembling used batteries into their reusable components, ensuring component quality, and then introducing these components back into the battery manufacturing process. The associated recovery technologies, which must continually evolve as lithium-ion battery technology evolves, use much less energy and create much less waste than current recycling methods. Although their new procedures are somewhat more labor-intensive, Steve calculates they use 1/62 as much energy (based on the Hess cycle calculation for smelting, boiling, and purifying the valuable components). If the energy used to originally extract these materials from the earth is included, the savings are even greater.
OnTo Technology came into being as a company in 2004, starting with a loan from the Oregon Department of Energy. This loan allowed Steve to hire a staff and to purchase equipment for pilot-plant scale research. A battery recall by Apple provided the raw materials required for initial testing. Interestingly, one of the first revenue streams for this fledgling company was reselling perfectly functional batteries (obtained in the recall but not on the recall list) on eBay. Since that time, OnTo Technology has largely moved away from the small consumer electronics batteries to work with automobile and ship batteries; a grant from the US Department of Energy, Vehicles Division supports this newer focus.
When asked about the business model for his company, Steve explains that OnTo Technologies is not planning to become a battery manufacturer. Instead, their goal is to license battery recycling technology to a manufacturing partner; currently they are working with XALT, a major US based manufacturer of large format batteries for cars and boats, and other manufacturers as well. The scientists at OnTo are working to keep up with rapidly evolving battery technologies, in order to keep their partners in the forefront. Their main product is knowledge and expertise in this exciting field.
In addition, OnTo works with OSU Chemistry’s Dr. Mike Lerner and his group to characterize material structures and compositions at different points in the recycling process. This information helps guide OnTo’s process development. Collaborating for several years now on battery chemistry, Dr. Lerner and Dr. Sloop met 20 years ago when Steve was a doctoral student working with Mike.
Battery companies are not only interested in Steve’s ideas in order to save money on minerals. There is momentum in local and state governments to require battery recycling, in order to reduce the toxic load in landfills; California already has such laws. In addition, the marketing value of being considered a “green” manufacturer cannot be overstated. Steve believes recycling is inevitable; he is leading the way in developing the best way to do it.
Many challenges remain; some manufacturers still think it is crazy to consider processes that are so labor intensive when it is easier/cheaper to grind and smelt, or discard, old batteries. In the future, an automated disassembly line may reduce the required labor. Right now, the scientists at OnTo Technologies continue to work on these challenges.