Chemical Engineering

Turning carbon emissions into rocks

In Penn’s Clean Energy Conversions Lab, researcher Peter Psarras and colleagues are repurposing waste from industrial mines, storing carbon pulled from the atmosphere into newly formed rock.

Michele W. Berger

Decoding a material’s ‘memory’

A new study details the relationship between particle structure and flow in disordered materials, insights that can be used to understand systems ranging from mudslides to biofilms.

Erica K. Brockmeier



In the News


The New York Times

Can your personal medical devices be recycled?

A lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science led the development of a COVID test made from bacterial cellulose, an organic compound.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

What’s so ‘magic’ about the secret South Jersey mud rubbed on baseballs? These Penn researchers think they know why

Doug Jerolmack of the School of Arts & Sciences, Paulo Arratia of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and colleagues are researching the chemical properties of baseball’s “magic mud” for use in applications beyond sports.

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SciTechDaily

Iontronics breakthrough: Faster thin film devices for improved batteries and advanced computing

Andrew Rappe of the School of Arts & Sciences and colleagues have developed high-quality, single-crystal oxide thin films, aligned in such a way that the lithium ions can move even faster along vertical ionic transport channels.

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The Guardian

Reversible superglue proves strong enough to hold average man

Shu Yang and colleagues from the School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new glue from hydrogel, inspired by snail slime. “The mucus [snails] produce is a viscous liquid, but when it dries they become firmly stuck,” said Yang.

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Nature

A DIY approach to automating your lab

Brian Chow of the School of Engineering and Applied Science led a team of Penn undergrads in developing a low-cost plate reader for teaching labs using open-source automation software. “Philosophically, I believe in supporting the open-source-hardware community,” he said.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Metallic wood’ at Penn is as strong as titanium but lighter than water

James Pikul of the School of Engineering and Applied Science comments on his innovation of a material that is as strong as titanium while putting aluminum to shame in the weight department.

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