Research by Trine ChemE alumni published in academic journals

By Mackenzie Rosenau
English ′26

Three Trine University alumni from the McKetta Department of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering — Natalie Crowner, Blake Trusty, and Adam Dumas — recently co-authored research published in academic journals.

Crowner’s research was titled, “Adsorptive microparticles formed by a non-solvent induced phase separation method for metal ion removal.

Trusty co-authored “Pervaporative Dehydration of 2,3-Butanediol by Dense Poly(vinylidene fluoride) Hollow Fiber Membranes: Parameter Estimation, Process Design, and Technoeconomic Evaluation under Uncertainty” and “Adsorptive denitrogenation of model aviation fuel using mesoporous silica in a packed bed adsorption system.”

Dumas was one of three authors for “Semi-empirical lumped models of polymer pyrolysis for poly(methyl methacrylate) and polyoxymethylene.”

Natalie Crowner

Crowner’s work was published in the academic journal Polymer. Her research was conducted at the University of Notre Dame through a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).

Titled Soft Materials Applications in Sustainability and Healthcare (SMASH), the REU focused on polymers.

The REU lasted for nine weeks. Much of the research was completed during this time.

Crowner had the freedom to perform certain experiments that she wanted and had the opportunity to learn from current graduate students and ask questions about instruments she wasn’t trained in. The program was divided into an exploratory phase and a data acquisition phase.

She describes each phase as follows, “The exploratory phase involved trial and error to create an effective particle generation method and observationally noting the experimental parameters that affect particle properties. The data acquisition phase involved the creation and characterization of 17 samples with differing experimental conditions.”

Crowner’s research during her time in the REU was the first step in a larger-scale project in which microparticles with certain properties are necessary.

According to Crowner, these properties include toggle-able adsorption and desorption (binding and releasing) of a solute (something in water in this case) of interest, size of about 100 microns in diameter, spherical or near-spherical in shape, some resistance to mechanical stress and porous inner and outer structure.

Crowner’s job during this research was to create a method to form microparticles out of a previously dissolved material. She did this by creating two separate bath conditions for solution droplets with a top layer and a lower layer.

She said, “The processes of casting solution droplets pinching off of the pipette and those droplets solidifying into particles would not occur together in the same bath conditions, so a two-phase formation bath was utilized with the top layer being ideal for droplet formation and the lower layer quickly vitrifying the droplets into particles.”

After this, the samples were analyzed to better understand how they can be used, and to identify the properties the microparticles held.

Crowner said, “Samples were created and characterized to begin to understand the relationship between certain experimental conditions (polymer concentration, formation bath composition, formation method) and resulting particle characteristics (diameter, aspect ratio, copper binding).”

Her work to develop these microparticles will help aid the larger-scale research project significantly.

Crowner gives credit to Trine University for helping her think more critically and apply what she has learned to her research, especially during the exploratory phase.

She said, “The conceptual understanding of chemical engineering topics that I got from Trine was more important than my ability to write and solve equations during my research. Being able to think about why phenomena are occurring in terms of chemical engineering concepts proved to be very useful in moving forward during the exploratory process.”

Crowner is currently in the first semester of her Ph.D. program in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She will stay in this program for the next five to six years. She plans to stay in academia and continue research or become a faculty member.

She said her work during the REU at Notre Dame helped to give her a confidence boost and prepared her for more research in the future.

Blake Trusty

Trusty has co-authored two separate articles in academic journals this year through his current position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). His work in both articles is sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), which supports efforts to produce sustainable aviation and marine fuels.

Trusty described the research process as extremely collaborative and said it gave him the opportunity to work with experts to ensure success in the project.

He said, “The national lab system is a very fast-paced research atmosphere; it has been a fun challenge to balance getting in the lab and doing the work with making sure we can communicate these results to the broader scientific community.”

Trusty’s first publication presents a low-energy method to separate water from a valuable platform chemical — a chemical building block that can be converted into products such as polymers, solvents and fuels — as an alternative to traditional distillation. His second publication investigates the effects of several process parameters on the ability of silica gels to remove nitrogen from fuels.

In regard to the second publication, he added, “This paper focuses on scale-up challenges often associated with the transition away from bench-scale work to a larger footprint. This work builds on prior understandings of the use of silica gels at bench scale and investigates what parameters matter in a more industrially relevant system configuration.”

Trusty credits Trine with giving him confidence in hands-on projects and giving him the opportunity to work with analytical equipment in chemistry and chemical engineering labs.

He said, “During this work I had to lead the development of precise analytical methods and troubleshoot instrument problems with several pieces of equipment, all of which I had very little experience with prior to these projects. The foundation Trine gives its students enables real problem solving beyond just repeating what anyone watched someone else do.”

For Trusty, seeing the articles published was professionally rewarding.

He said, "The peer review process is often a challenge, but it makes the end result a much better piece of work. For example, the denitrogenation paper took more than one round of revisions to be published, but after each set of comments the paper became stronger, with more concrete conclusions, until it was finally a meaningful contribution to the field.”

Trusty is currently continuing his work at ORNL to develop new separation technologies with a focus on sustainable fuels to enable a low-emission bioeconomy (using renewable biological resources), and mineral recovery for clean energy and defense applications.

He added, “Every time I come back to campus I’m impressed with the growth and new facilities that are available, even compared to when I graduated in 2019. I’d love to be a student at Trine now and I’m excited for the opportunities that exist for current students.”

Adam Dumas

Adam Dumas recently co-authored a journal article that describes his research on heating processes for polymers and how they can be used to develop rocket fuels. His research is funded by the Department of Defense and is focused on understanding the fundamentals of rocket propulsion using a solid polymer or plastic as fuel.

Dumas joined his current lab group in October 2023, only a couple of months after beginning his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University. His research is a multi-university research initiative (MURI).

He said, “I work with faculty and students from Stanford, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, University of California Riverside, Auburn and Penn State, which is a fun experience, I became involved with this paper as a result of that research project.”

Dumas’ research focused on two engineering plastics: POM and PMMA. POM can be used in mechanical gears, pen caps and guitar picks, while PMMA is usually used as a substitute for glass such as Plexiglas.

Dumas described his research as follows, “For our experiments, we heated the polymers in an oxygen-free furnace until they were destroyed (a process known as pyrolysis). From the experiments, we then developed kinetic models to fit our data. Even though polymer pyrolysis often appears to be one single reaction, our models show that there are multiple reactions happening during degradation.” 

From the small-scale models of their research, their collaborators can develop large-scale combustion models for using POM and PMMA as rocket fuels.

Dumas described the research as “a very collaborative process.” He and his lab coworker work closely to ensure the success of their research. They also work alongside their advisor and other aerospace engineering collaborators.

He said, “Our research process is two-fold: experiments and modeling. My lab coworker and I work very closely together to synergize our research. He often performs the brunt of the experiments, while I focus on the modeling and performing simulations of polymer pyrolysis.”

The chemical engineering department at Trine prepared Dumas for the classes and research that he would do in graduate school through providing skills such as learning how to read research papers, data analysis and how to solve a problem with no solution in a textbook.

Dumas said, “The whole chemical engineering department at Trine, including Dr. Malefyt, Dr. Wagner and Dr. Borden, was very supportive of my decision to go to graduate school and their excellent teaching prepared me well for the very difficult grad classes I have now passed.” 

Dumas is currently starting his third year of his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University with hopes to continue working on researching the chemistry of polymer fuels in rockets. He is also pursuing engineering education classes with the goal of becoming a professor, similar to the faculty who inspired him during his education at Trine.