MISSOURI S&T

In this issue

Recruitment Report (p.2)

New Position Update and Fundraising Endeav-ors (p.3)

Chem-E-Car Overview (p.4)

Volunteering in Rolla (p.5)

Spring 2016 Speaker Series (p.6-7)

Fall 2016 AIChE Officers (p.8)

A Semester in Review -Shayan Sazdar, President

Looking back, this spring was once again an exciting and busy semester for the AIChE student chapter. During our speaker series and corporate mixer, it was a pleasure to be joined by several visi-tors including industry engineers, researchers, and alumni to learn about a variety of topics such as na-noparticles for drug delivery, starting your own chemical business, dynamic simulation, planning chemi-cal facilities, and even nuclear imaging techniques for multiphase reactors. In addition, the chapter par-ticipated in two plant tours (Ameren Missouri’s Callaway Energy Center and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuti-cals), provided more than 30 department tours for prospective chemical engineering students, took sec-ond place among the university tables at the AIChE-St. Louis section trivia night and made reportedly the best tasting pancakes that an AIChE pancake breakfast fundraiser has ever had!

Furthermore, I am proud to say that at the 2016 Mid-America Student Regional Conference in Manhattan, KS, the Missouri S&T student chapter was represented by two Chem-E-Car teams, one Chem-E Jeopardy team, one research paper competitor, and one research poster competitor. This con-ference was the first time since I have been involved in AIChE that we have had members competing in every single competition. Thank you to everyone who represented the chapter and also congratulations to Patrick Brennan who finished second place in the research paper competition! It is very encouraging to see that at every single national and regional conference over the past two years, we have had mem-bers successfully place in the competitions. I encourage anyone interested in competing in the future to attend the conferences with our chapter so that this trend will continue.

Overall, it was a privilege to serve as president for the student chapter, and I am thankful for the hard work and time of all our officers, our kind visitors, our friends at AIChE-St. Louis, and our advisor, Dr. Christi Luks, who helped make this semester a success. I hope that you enjoyed and benefited from the events this semester!

Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Picture of the Missouri S&T AIChE table at the AIChE St. Louis Section Engineering Trivia Night.

AICHE SEMESTER NEWSLETTER

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Recruitment Report -Paige Bogert, Recruitment Chair

More than 30 departmental tours were given during the Spring 2016 semester including open houses and Miner Days. The recruitment committee added new members as well as lost some to graduation. Most of the recruitment committee partici-pated this semester in at least one event or department tour.

Department tours were given throughout the semester to incoming students. The tours allowed the students to gain a bet-ter overview of the department and programs. Most of the in-coming students are perusing the Chemical Engineering pro-gram, while others are interested in the Biochemical Engineering program. To increase the exposure of the MS&T AIChE chapter, the recruitment committee attended ProDays. Incoming students were able to sign up for more information concerning the degree programs and MS&T AIChE chapter. It is exciting to know that there are students from outside of Missouri that are interested in the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering programs.

As an officer of the MS&T AIChE chapter, I attended the regional conference that was held by Kansas State University on April 1st-3rd. The regional conference consisted of the Chem-E-Car design team competition, paper and poster competitions, and ChemE jeopardy. MS&T students participated in all the events. This year MS&T participated in the jeopardy competition and advanced through to the second round. The Chem-E-Car teams expanded their knowledge during their time through the competition. One student, Patrick Brennan, placed second in the paper competition. The competitors had fun and met new peo-ple. I would consider our time at regionals educating and suc-cessful.

Missouri S&T Chem-E-Car teams compet-ing at the 2016 Mid-America Student Re-gional Conference.

Picture of Paige Bogert and Marc St. Amour working at the AIChE ProDay table.

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Fundraising Endeavors -Kevin Ewald, Fundraising Committee Coordinator

As Matt said, this truly has been an exciting semester for the Missouri S&T chapter of AIChE, and I have had the opportunity to set the precedent for the newly created position of Fundraising Committee Coordinator. Without a doubt, the fundraisers that brought both myself and my fellow students the most joy were the AIChE Pancake Breakfasts. These are a long-held tradition that have always been popular with the chemical engineering crowd, and between the two of them that I organized we made and sold well over 100 pancakes. My favorite memories from these events all stem from my interactions with the volunteers. One time in par-ticular, I was asked by a volunteer to make a Mickey Mouse pan-cake. Due to my inability to do anything artistic, the only resem-blance the pancake had to the beloved character were the giant ears, which led to it being named Mackey Mouse (a distant relative of Mickey).

Along with the pancake breakfasts, the MS&T chapter of AIChE has also held a doughnut sale and a pastry sale, both of which were a lot of fun to host. With all of this being said, the fund-raiser I am the proudest of is one that I won't be able to finish on my own, and that is the AIChE Crowdfunding Campaign. Going into this semester, I was excited about the chance to set up a Go-FundMe account for our chapter and see what we could do with it. I worked a lot with the chapter President, Shayan Sazdar, on writ-ing text for the website that would encourage readers to donate. Shayan took it upon himself to compile a list of alumni contact in-formation and draft a letter to ask for their support. Everything was set up and ready to go, however, we unfortunately ran into some problems when it came to linking this GoFundMe account to one of our bank accounts. Since then, I have been working on setting up a Crowdfunding account through the university itself, and while I won't be an officer long enough to see it come to fruition, I'm excit-ed about what it could bring to the chapter in the future.

New Position

Update - Matthew Cyrwus, Treasurer

This has been an exciting se-mester for our chapter of AIChE. For starters, we made some changes to the constitution and created an appointed position of Fundraising Committee Co-ordinator. The Treasurer appoints this position from now on and I think that it has certainly helped evenly disperse the responsibilities of the organization. At the start of this semester, I chose my good friend Kevin Ewald to become the next Fundraising Committee Coor-dinator. He has led some classic fund-raisers and taken some great strides in trying to set up awesome new pro-grams and events that can be held in the future. I think that this position will grow quickly in the coming years which will help our chapter become even more successful than it already is.

Picture of the volunteers working the table for the AIChE Pancake Breakfast .

Mathias Whitworth volunteering at the AIChE Pancake Breakfast table.

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Chem-E-Car Overview - Valerie Teson, Chem-E-Car President

With our number of active team members doubling over the course of one year, we were able to send two teams to competition for the first time. Both teams had innovative mechanisms in their cars. Due to technical difficulties with electrical components, neither team was able to place at the regional competition. As we continue into next year, teams will have an en-tire school year to prepare and perfect their cars before the next regional competition. Keep an eye out, because we will be making a comeback!

Spring 2016 Cars:

The Van:

This car got its name due to the baby food jars nec-essary to hold its zinc bromide battery cells. The team, Babies on Board, worked hard to create these battery cells with sensitive (and messy) graphite electrodes. The stopping mechanism reaction used was the hydrolysis of acetic anhydride with water and triethylamine as a catalyst. As the reaction proceeds, the pH of the solution lowers. This was measured by a pH meter. Once the pH drops below a certain boundary, the car stops via an arduino control system.

Straight Out of Rolla:

Using a lead-acid battery as their power source, the team Breaking Beakers was able to modify an old car to make it competition ready. The battery's anode contains lead, which is oxidized by sulfuric acid, while the cathode contains lead dioxide which is reduced by the sulfuric acid. The oxidation and reduction reactions cause electrons to be transferred from the anode to the cathode which results in a voltage being produced. The oxida-tion of d-glucose (dextrose) by an aqueous NaOH solution was the stopping mechanism reaction for the vehicle. In the presence of sodium, oxidation of the dextrose allows sodium to react slightly with the exposed oxygen of the dextrose, resulting in the overall color of the solution to slowly darken at a constant rate that is measurable and consistent. A light directed through the solution sends an electric signal to a photosensor, which upon reaching a predetermined data value, sig-nals the car to stop its motor.

Picture of Team Breaking Beakers.

Picture of Team Babies On Board.

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Picture of volunteer, Cesar Ramirez , painting at the Kaleidoscope Discovery Center.

Volunteering in Rolla -Yasseen Osman, External Activities Coordinator

Missouri S&T’s student AIChE chapter is proud to have been able to host a volunteer event for the 3rd semester in a row, with our most recent having been at the Kaleidoscope Discovery Center located in downtown Rolla. During our time there we were able to paint several concrete pillars in preparation for a future exhibit, as well as stack ceiling tiles necessary for mainte-nance. We look forward to assisting our community again in the future.

In addition to the volunteer event, the chapter hosted two highway cleanups alongside our adopted stretch of interstate 44 southwest of campus. We have been able to have these clean-ups for the past few years and it is always great to see how clean our adopted portion of the interstate looks afterwards when the litter alongside it is picked up.

On top of our representation in Rolla, our chapter is also represented within Student Council at the university as well as the Student Advisory Committee within the Chemical Engineer-ing Department. We are looking into having social events within the department.

Finally, it is our hope that within this year or the next the Chem-E-Car team is able to become a full-fledged official stu-dent design team within the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center.

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Picture from the general meeting in which Kristine Hamilton from ExxonMobil presented.

Spring 2016 Speaker Series -Alex Kessel, Vice President

This Spring 2016 semester, the AIChE chapter at the Missouri

University of Science and Technology enthusiastically continued to host speakers not only from the network of businesses that S&T is con-nected to, but also from within the faculty doing research at the school.

Dr. Muthanna Al-Dahhan kicked off the year for the AIChE chap-ter presentations by explaining his research into multi-phase reactors, encouraging many of the students present to pursue undergraduate (and graduate) research, since S&T is full of research opportunities. For the remaining duration of the semester, both new and returning in-dustry partners shared what chemical engineering can look like in the U.S. and around the globe via presentation and a personal Q&A ses-sion where students could ask them virtually anything they would like to know. As always, the AIChE student chapter is immensely grateful to all the MS&T alumni that returned to share how their experience in Rolla transformed and prepared them for the world they entered upon graduation. More details on each speaker are listed on the next page.

In addition to the regular speaker series, the AIChE students al-so hosted a Corporate Mixer on February 15th, the day before the ca-reer fair, to give students a wonderful opportunity to network with po-tential employers and talk to them in a much more personable setting. This year, representatives from a total of five companies came out: Clorox, Cargill, ADM, Catalytic Innovations, and Pantheon Biologics. While unfortunately coinciding with a testing night, a few students made it out and took advantage of this incredible chance to get to learn more about these companies. The AIChE chapter is very grateful to all of the companies that helped make that event a success.

Of special note: this upcoming fall, the CEO of ICL Performance Products, Mark Volmer, will be coming in to speak directly to the AIChE chapter! The official date is September 14th, meeting at 7pm. This is a rare opportunity that no student should miss!

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Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Industry and Department guest speakers

January 27th, Dr. Muthanna Al-Dahhan, Missouri S&T ChemE Department Chair. Dr. Al-Dahhan shared his research on multi-phase reactors, stressing the importance of both why his re-search is important to the plant industry, and why students should be interested in research.

February 11th, Dennis Linck, NAVAIR. Mr. Linck packed a punch in his presentation about smart explosives and other work that was being accomplished by NAVAIR, focusing in on why this work is a necessity for the nation.

February 24th, Dr. Scott Volner, Catalytic Innovations. Dr. Volner, though owning a company more in tune with material sci-ence, happily shared a little about the work he does, the crossover between his plant work and ChemE, and what it is like to start up a company/plant.

March 9th, Dr. Sutapa Barua, Missouri S&T ChemE Faculty.

As a professor here at S&T, Dr. Barua enthusiastically shared her re-search into biomaterials and potential cancer treatments while also encouraging students to get involved with research of some kind.

March 23rd, Kristine Hamilton, ExxonMobil. Having graduated not too long ago, Kristine presented her work in plant design with a very fresh set of eyes. She also described what it was like outside of S&T compared to what it was like as a student, challenging everyone to keep their minds open for constant learning.

April 13th, Dave Sextro & Zach Sample, MYNAH Technolo-

gies. Dave and Zach came in to share about their MIMIC software and how crucial it could be in the future of plant training, given that their pro-gram emulates real life without the millions of dollars of physical plant equipment behind it.

General meeting with Dennis Linck presenting from NAVAIR.

Dr. Al-Dahhan presenting to the chapter.

General meeting with Dr. Scott Volner present-ing to the chapter.

11/12/2014. “The Hour Strikes Twelve” charging for practice tests.

Missouri University of Science and Technology: American Institute of Chemical Engineers (Rolla, MO) May 2016

Stay up to date with AIChE online! Please visit our new website http://mst.orgsync.com/org/aiche. It will in-

clude all of the current and upcoming AIChE events and meetings, links to

our Facebook and Twitter pages, and many more updates. Be sure to

also:

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Request an invite on OrgSync

Also, as always, we encourage members to register as a national member

for all of the latest updates from AIChE. Visit http://www.aiche.org/

community/students/student-membership to register. National member-

ship is free for students!

Fall 2016 AIChE Officers Congratulations to all of the Fall 2016 officers for winning their elections! We are looking forward to your leadership next semester.

Paige Bogert, President

Scott Marchetti, Vice President

Katherine Bremer, Secretary

Jessica Ambrose, Treasurer

Aaron Latal, Recruitment Officer

Stephen Eastman, Chem-E-Car President

Daniel Hall, External Activities Coordinator

Tarique Ahmad, Fundraising Committee Coordinator

Acknowledgments This newsletter was pre-pared by Katie Bremer (newsletter coordinator) and the newsletter com-mittee.

Spring 2016 Officers Shayan Sazdar President

Alex Kessel Vice President

Katie Bremer Secretary

Matthew Crywus Treasurer Paige Bogert Recruitment Officer

Valerie Teson Chem-E-Car President Yasseen Osman External Activities Coordinator

Kevin Ewald Fundraising Committee Coordinator

Contact Us

Missouri S&T AIChE Bertelsmeyer Hall 1101 N. State Street Rolla, MO 65409 aiche@mst.edu