IN THE NEWS
Engineering Physics Associate Professor Paul Wilson was an in-studio
guest September 3 on the Madison Channel 27 morning news. During the
four-minute slot, Wilson answered questions about nuclear energy,
including the presidential candidates’ energy policies, approach to
nuclear energy, energy in general, and nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Manos Mavrikakis has been selected for the 2009 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis. The purpose of the Award is to recognize and encourage individuals (under the age of 46) and their contributions in the field of catalysis with emphasis on discovery and understanding of catalytic phenomena, proposal of catalytic reaction mechanisms and identification of and description of catalytic sites and species. Read more at www.nacatsoc.org/news.asp?NewsID=136

NEW PROCESS DERIVES ‘GREEN GASOLINE’ FROM PLANT SUGARS
Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of
Energy, Steenbock Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering James
Dumesic and his team have developed a process that creates
transportation fuels from plant material. Their paper, published in the
September 18 online version of the journal /Science/, explains how they
convert sugar into molecules that can be efficiently “upgraded” into
gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Read more at
http://www.engr.wisc.edu/news/headlines/2008/Sep18.html.

The team’s advance made news worldwide, with stories in newspapers and on websites around the United States and in India, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands,
France and Japan. ABC News affiliates across the country reported the
story via an agreement between Engineering External Relations and the
NSF-funded ScienCentral News. View the story at:
www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/09/19/green-gasoline/

The Hybrid Vehicle Team cruised to second place in the final year of the Challenge X competition. Sponsored by General Motors and the US Department of Energy, the competition culminated in a three-day road rally from Englishtown Raceway in New Jersey to Washington, D.C. The challenge consists of 17 collegiate teams competing to redesign, fabricate and refine a hybrid Chevrolet Equinox Crossover SUV suitable for consumer use. The UW-Madison vehicle is a through-the-road parallel hybrid electric vehicle with a 1.9L GM direct injection turbo diesel engine, fueled by B20 biodiesel. A routine but ill-timed regeneration of the diesel particulate filter prevented the Moovada from peak performance, but the team’s outstanding engineering and outreach earned a second-place finish.

Engineering Professional Development Professor Emeritus Willis Long has been selected to receive the IEEE Power & Engineering Society (PES) Uno Lamm HVDC Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to high voltage direct current technology. The IEEE Power and Engineering Society awards only 14 society-level awards, with recipients chosen through an extensive, competitive process. Long will receive the award in July at the IEEE PES General Meeting in Pittsburgh in recognition of his work in Brazil, Europe and North America in advancing this critical infrastructure element.

James Dumesic, Chemical and Biological Engineering Steenbock Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has received a 2007 Scientific American “SciAm 50” award for his innovative alternative fuels research.

More…

Chemical and Biological Engineering Associate Professor Ross Swaney, together with Gary Scott (CBEPhD ’93), Cory Black (CBEMS ’01) and other collaborators at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, have been granted a patent on an improved process for producing paper pulp that involves pretreatment of wood chips or other feedstock with oxalic acid. The process reduces the electrical energy required to produce pulp mechanically, while improving the strength of the finished paper product. Process development is continuing in collaboration with a Wisconsin paper company. A second patent application has been submitted on a modification of the process that permits the extraction of hemicellulose in a form that is particularly amenable to fermentation for ethanol production. A third patent application has been filed on the production of medium density fiberboard providing enhanced water resistance.

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from Science Daily:

Researchers Matt Johnston and Tracey Holloway of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) ranked 226 countries according to their potential to make large volumes of biodiesel at low cost…