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Tag: Missouri University of Science and Technology

  • Developing carbon-negative cementitious materials, giving new life to ‘unusable’ waste

    Developing carbon-negative cementitious materials, giving new life to ‘unusable’ waste

    Newswise — ROLLA, Mo. – A Missouri University of Science and Technology research team was recently awarded $2.5 million in funding to find new ways to turn waste products into supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) – plus use those materials to store carbon permanently in concrete.

    “Years ago, SCMs were used as a cheap option to replace some Portland cement and also have a stronger and more durable concrete mixture,” says Dr. Hongyan Ma, Francisco Benavides Scholar and associate professor of civil engineering at S&T. “There is now a severe shortage of these materials, so my team is looking at creative ways to develop new alternatives that are carbon-negative and will make the industry greener.”

    Ma also serves as director of S&T’s Laboratory of Future Cements and Carbon-Negative Initiatives.

    He says one of the most common SCMs has traditionally been coal combustion residue, or fly ash, but a large percentage of this type of waste is not currently usable in cement. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, 2.5 billion tons of this type of waste have been disposed of in ponds and landfills throughout the United States.

    Ma’s two-year research project, which received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and $500,000 in matching funds from S&T and industry partners, aims to make this unusable waste into something of value.

    The research will also cover the ash from municipal solid waste incinerators, steel slag, recycled concrete and other waste products. The team is currently developing processes to break down the structure of the solid wastes in ways that will also allow them to store CO2.

    The carbon that is combined with these new SCMs will primarily come from the flue gases of power plants and the manufacturing industry, Ma says. By using CO2 directly from the flue gasses, as long as the concentration is high enough, his team will not have to use energy-intensive carbon-capture methods.

    Ma says this project is designed to make a significant difference in the concrete industry in the near future, as opposed to focusing on more general, long-term concepts.

    “The work we are conducting is mission-oriented,” he says. “Part of our research is to make sure what we develop is economically feasible. It can’t be too expensive, as it needs to be a realistic option to support the supply chain.”

    Ma is the project’s principal investigator (PI). Serving as his co-PIs at Missouri S&T are: Dr. Aditya Kumar, associate professor of materials science and engineering; Dr. Mahelet Fikru, associate professor of economics; and Dr. Wenyu Liao, assistant research professor of civil engineering. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is also collaborating with S&T for the project.

    For more information about Missouri S&T’s civil engineering programs, visit care.mst.edu.

    About Missouri University of Science and Technology 
    Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.

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  • S&T electrical engineering expert named Curators’ Distinguished Professor

    S&T electrical engineering expert named Curators’ Distinguished Professor

    Newswise — ROLLA, Mo. – Dr. Jagannathan Sarangapani, Missouri University of Science and Technology’s William A. Rutledge-Emerson Electric Co. Distinguished Professor in electrical and computer engineering, has been named a Curators’ Distinguished Professor.

    The University of Missouri Board of Curators awards this title to outstanding faculty members with established reputations in their field of study.

    Sarangapani joined the S&T faculty in 2001 as an associate professor. In 2005, he was promoted to professor. He also holds a courtesy appointment as a professor in S&T’s computer science department. For 13 years, Sarangapani served as S&T’s site director for the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Intelligent Maintenance Systems.

    His research areas include learning, adaptation and control; secure cyber-physical human systems; big data and prognostics; and robotics and autonomous systems.

    Prior to S&T, Sarangapani was on the faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio and worked as a staff engineer for Caterpillar.

    With support from his students, Sarangapani has co-authored 193 peer-reviewed journal articles, published 300 refereed conference articles, written 18 book chapters and authored or co-edited six books. He holds 21 patents and one patent defensive publication.

    Sarangapani has delivered approximately 30 plenary and keynote talks in international conferences and graduated 32 Ph.D. students and 31 master’s students. He is on the editorial board for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, among other publications.

    In 2021, he was awarded the University of Missouri President’s Award for Sustained Career Excellence. He is a Fellow of IEEE, the National Academy of Inventors, the Institute of Measurement and Control, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association.

    Sarangapani earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Anna University in Madras, India.

    About Missouri University of Science and Technology
    Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System and located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 101 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top 10 universities for return on investment, according to Business Insider. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.

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  • S&T petroleum engineering expert named Curators’ Distinguished Professor

    S&T petroleum engineering expert named Curators’ Distinguished Professor

    Newswise — ROLLA, Mo. – Dr. Baojun Bai, Missouri University of Science and Technology’s Lester Birbeck Endowed Chair of petroleum engineering, has been named a Curators’ Distinguished Professor.

    The University of Missouri Board of Curators awards this title to outstanding faculty members with established reputations in their field of study.

    Bai has served as a faculty member at S&T since 2006. He started as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2011. In 2015, he was promoted to full professor.

    He is director of the university’s Preformed Particle Gel Conformance Control Industrial Consortium and has over 25 years of experience researching water production control, enhanced oil recovery, unconventional reservoir development, carbon storage and geothermal energy.

    Prior to S&T, Bai spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the chemistry and chemical engineering division of California Institute of Technology. He also has experience and as a petroleum engineer and laboratory director for PetroChina’s Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED) in Beijing, China.

    He has been published in over 260 peer-reviewed journal articles and delivered more than 150 presentations at national and international conferences. Forty-three Ph.D. students and 42 master’s students under his supervision have completed their degrees. He currently supervises an additional 10 Ph.D. students.

    Bai created a particle gel for conformance control that has been used in over 10,000 wells and is now considered industry-standard technology. Earlier this year, he was awarded the 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty from the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

    Bai earned a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, a Ph.D. in petroleum geology from China University of Geosciences, a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from the Graduate School of RIPED in PetroChina, and a bachelor’s degree in reservoir engineering from Daqing Petroleum Institute in Heilongjiang, China.

    About Missouri University of Science and Technology
    Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System and located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 101 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top 10 universities for return on investment, according to Business Insider. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.

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  • Missouri S&T CO2 research is rock solid

    Missouri S&T CO2 research is rock solid

    Newswise — As climate change accelerates, scientists are investigating ways to lower carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At Missouri University of Science and Technology, researchers are developing solutions by turning CO2 into rock, including massive rocks for permanent carbon storage, and concrete, the manmade rock that supports modern civilization.

    “CO2 concentration in our atmosphere is now 420 parts per million, the highest in human history,” says Dr. Hongyan Ma, an associate professor of civil engineering at Missouri S&T. “We need ways to not only reduce CO2 emission but also to remove CO2 from the air and utilize or permanently store the removed CO2 at a scale large enough to combat climate change.”

    Ma and a team of researchers in materials science and engineering, chemical engineering, mining, economics, and other disciplines at Missouri S&T are forcing CO2 to react with silicate rocks and industrial wastes generated from power plants, cement plants, concrete recycling facilities, and steel mills to form carbonate minerals. Such reactions happen in nature over millions of years to create natural limestone and dolomite formations that stores trillions of tons of carbon, but they are too slow to address the climate change challenge.

    Ma and his team use innovative technologies to speed up the process. Their manmade rocks are intended for gigaton-scale permanent carbon storage or production of carbon-negative cement materials for making concrete. Traditional cement production emits a metric ton of CO2 for every metric ton of cement produced, and Ma says the innovations will potentially reduce over 2 billion metric tons of CO2 every year.

    Ma’s CO2 conversion and utilization work has garnered more than $2 million in grants for Missouri S&T from the National Science Foundation and other organizations such as the Environmental Research & Education Foundation and the Association for Iron & Steel Technology. These research projects focus on processing various solid wastes using captured CO2 or CO2-rich flue gases to make carbon-negative cement materials and manmade rock for permanent carbon storage.  Ma is seeking follow-up grant funding and investment to scale up these innovations and accelerate commercialization.

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  • Iranian Political Expert Available to Talk About Recent Events

    Iranian Political Expert Available to Talk About Recent Events

    Newswise — Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi, vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology, is an expert in comparative politics, Middle East regional politics and Iranian history.

    Boroujerdi is the author of four books: Post-revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook, published in 2018; Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and Theory of Statecraft, published in 2013; Tarashidam, Parastidam, Shikastam: Guftarhay-i dar Siyasat va Huvyiyat-i Irani (I Carved, Worshiped and Shattered: Essays on Iranian Politics and Identity), published in 2010; and Iranian Intellectuals and the West: Tormented Triumph of Nativism, published in 1996.

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