The following positions are available for Spring 2024 within the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University to all current ChBE undergraduate students. Subject to ChBE Chair approval.
Lehigh University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status.
Undergraduate Laboratory Assistant
The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is looking for 1-2 students interested in setting up, designing, and running experiments in support of the department's teaching laboratories.
To inquire: contact Professor Menicucci
Undergraduate Research Assistant (1)
This project will investigate the deposition of semiconductive polymer coatings to perform research with the Gilchrist and Reichmanis Laboratories. Student responsibilities include laboratory safety, experiments, characterization, and summarizing/reporting their findings to the research groups. Students must complete the required HST safety training before entering the laboratory.
To inquire: contact Professor Gilchrist and Professor Reichmanis
Undergraduate Research Assistant (2)
A team of researchers from ChBE (Gilchrist) and Bioengineering (Cheng) are scheduled to launch research samples into space for an experiment.The student working on this project will primarily 1) Laser cut glass slides and help assemble them into the devices that will hold our samples and 2) help run the code for image analysis of our images from our microscope. Students will also have an opportunity to shadow researchers and develop their own experiments.
To inquire: contact Professor Gilchrist
Undergraduate Research Assistant (3)
Investigation of Buoyancy of Janus Particles: Janus particles are those that have one type of property on one half and another type of property on the other half. If the density of a particles is less than that of water, they would float at the surface of an air-water interface. My colleague, Professor Ferguson of the department of chemistry, discovered many years ago that not all particles of density less than that of water would float on the surface. Rather they would come near the surface and stay below the interface. Similar phenomenon is sometimes called as the “Moses Effect”. On the other hand, we discovered in our lab several years ago that certain bead with density more than that of the liquid do not sink all the way down. They become neutrally buoyant after descending in the liquid below.
Prof Ferguson and Professor Chaudhury are planning to do some research in these problem in order to understand thoroughly the reasons behind these unique findings. The student will be jointly supervised by both professors.
To inquire: contact Professor Chaudhury
Undergraduate Research Assistant (4)
Objective: Evaluate the use of renewable electrical energy in high temperature processes
Expectations: Explore the Mass and Energy balances, thermodynamic equilibrium and simple kinetics of important endothermic processes to minimize environmental impact.
Expected background: Junior/senior level to be able to understand what drives current chemical processes in a fundamental basis. A very motivated rising sophomore could also workout.
Project: Transforming electrical energy into high temperature is a very efficient use of energy either captured from the sun (solar cells) or wind (wind farms). Three processes are of immediate interest:
Hydrogen production by steam methane reforming (with CO 2 Capture) CH 4 + H 2 O=CO 2 + 4H 2 (1000C). Hydrogen is critical for ammonia fertilizer production, clean steel production, hydrogen cars and other processes such as glass production. Currently steam reformers are enormous structures (40x40x40 ft) that burn large amounts of methane. An electric regenerative process reduces the size to 10x4x4 ft. Initial calculations indicate this to be highly feasible.
Cement production: Cement production is responsible for about 10% of industrial CO 2 . This is due to the need to decompose Limestone to CO 2 and provide enough heat to raise the temperature of CaO and
SiO 2 to ~1300C to form the clinker that when ground will yield the hydraulic cement used in construction. The flue gases of the current process contain up to 30% CO 2 but separation is still needed. Replacing the high temperature flame by an electric will produce pure CO 2 ready for sequestration. (This already being used
Hydrocarbon Dehydrogenation: These are high temperature/low pressure endothermic processes such as ethane dehydrogenation to produce ethylene and hydrogen, ethylbenzene to styrene and hydrogen. These are building blocks for plastics such as polyethylene and polystyrene as well as potentially biodegradable polymers. Again, the issue is to use electrical heat with no CO 2 emissions.
To inquire: contact Professor Caram
Undergraduate Research Assistant (5)
Green Electrocatalytic Upgrading of Bio-Derived Feedstocks: The McIntosh and Snyder labs are looking for motivated undergraduate students (up to two) to work on a novel approach to electrocatalysis . The goal is to use renewable energy to upgrade plant-derived molecules into useful chemicals that can, for example, be used as replacements for fossil fuel derived plastics.
To inquire: contact Professor McIntosh
Undergraduate Research Assistant (6)
Semiconducting polymer-insulating polymer blends of varying compositions will be fabricated via blade coating and spin coating to explore the impact of solution processing on thin polymer film characteristics. Characterization methods will include optical microscopy evaluation, UV-vis and FT-IR spectroscopic studies. Polymer films will also be fabricated on transistor device substrates to explore impact of blends/processing on macroscopic device performance.
To inquire: contact Professor Reichmanis
Undergraduate Research Assistant (7)
Mixed conduction polymers – from electrochemical characterization to devices: Carboxylated semiconducting polymers will be characterized for their electrochemical behavior to serve as the active material in organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs). Thin films of the mixed conduction polymers will be fabricated via blade coating and spin coating to explore the impact of processing on thin polymer film characteristics and device performance. Characterization methods will include a range of spectroscopic studies, coupled with in situ electrochemical analysis.
To inquire: contact Professor Reichmanis
Undergraduate Research Assistant (8)
Composite electrodes for next generation energy storage: Organic/inorganic hybrid electrodes for high capacity Li-ion batteries will be fabricated and characterized using electrochemical and spectroscopic tools. Experimental research may encompass the synthesis of polymers that may undergo non-bonding crosslinking that allow for tuning of processing and chemical parameters to alleviate mechanical stress and inhibit deformation both at the particle and electrode level; and exploration of materials chemistries that allow for the fabrication of resilient interfaces in a cost-effective and scalable approach.
To inquire: contact Professor Reichmanis
Undergraduate Research Assistant (9)
(for credit or work study, Up to two students: ChBE major interested in learning and contributing to topics related to design, operation of oxygen concentrators in an experimental setup. The project will involve learning how to operate a cyclic pressure swing adsorption system using machine learning methods, conducting either experimental studies or simulation studies to optimize the performance and demonstrate high medical grade oxygen production in a test setup.
To inquire: contact Professor Kothare
Undergraduate Office Assistant
General duties include but are not limited to designing and editing marketing materials, photography, videography, social media outreach, event preparations, special projects for department events and other duties as assigned. Photoshop, videography, and social media skills preferred. ~5-6 hours per week. Student(s) will work directly with Department Coordinator.
To inquire: contact Jamie Lenhart