Research Highlights

UMass Engineers Invent Basic Tool Needed to Optimize Biofuel Production

Think of the chemical reactions that turn wood into sustainable biofuel as the brackets for March Madness. And think of the molecules produced by those chemical reactions as the teams inside the brackets. Until now, chemical engineers couldn’t even chart the brackets, much less fill in the teams. All those reactions were so complex that engineers didn’t have a clue what was happening inside a biomass reactor. Now a team of chemical engineers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has developed a brilliant new tool that will allow researchers for the first time to study the reactions inside a biofuel reactor, track the molecules produced by those reactions, and adjust the reactor to produce the highest possible grade of bio-oil. Read more »

Distractology 101 Attracts More Media Attention

On January 23, two media reports focused on efforts to educate young people about the dangers of texting while driving by introducing them to “Distractology 101,” a program created by the Arbella Insurance Human Performance Laboratory, whose director is Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department Head Don Fisher. The first report was aired on WWLP-TV 22, while the second was a feature article in the Springfield Republican. Read more »

NIH Funds Research on Human “Body Clock”

Michael Henson, a faculty member in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the director of the campus Center for Process Design and Control, plays a key role in a four-year, $950,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the 24-hour circadian rhythm, or “body clock,” in humans. Professor Henson’s research for this four-school collaborative project involves creating mathematical models of circadian rhythm generation to better understand sleep disorders and other diseases triggered by malfunction of the 24-hour body clock. Read more »

Engineers Make “Building Blocks of Chemical Industry” From Wood While Boosting Production by 40 Percent

Chemical engineers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, using their own licensed catalytic fast pyrolysis process for transforming renewable non-food biomass into petrochemicals, have developed a new catalyst that boosts the yield for five key “building blocks of the chemical industry” by a remarkable 40 percent over previous catalysts. This sustainable production process, which promises to be competitive and compatible with the current petroleum refinery infrastructure, has been tested and proven in a laboratory reactor, using wood as the feedstock. Read more »

UMass Amherst Engineer Receives $351,000 NSF Grant to Develop Advanced Biomedical Imaging System

Christopher D. Salthouse, an electrical engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been awarded a three-year, $351,303 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop integrated circuits that could lead to a new generation of biomedical sensors that are more sensitive, more portable and less costly than existing instruments. Salthouse says a goal of his research is to develop sophisticated integrated circuits that can be used in new devices that will replace the existing generation of fluorescence microscopes used by many biomedical and biological researchers. Read more »

UMass Amherst Magazine Spotlights Collura and Fisher

The Summer 2011 edition of UMass Amherst Magazine includes an eight-page spread that spotlights the UMass Amherst Transportation Center and the Arbella Insurance Human Performance Laboratory. The transportation stories also use pithy quotes from the heads of those two groups. “Transportation, like food and water, is a basic human need,” says Transportation Center Director John Collura to begin the spread. “It impacts everyone.” A two-and-a-half-page story on the Transportation Center is the lead for the whole spread. A one-and-a-half-page box on the Arbella Insurance Human Performance Laboratory focuses on its Head, Donald Fisher, who is also the head of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department. Link to spread: Keep on Moving On. Read more »