Research
Breaking New Ground
The Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Colorado School of Mines has a comprehensive research program and counts among its faculty eight NSF CAREER Award winners, one PECASE Award winner, and one DOE Early Investigator Award winner. CBE faculty conduct cutting-edge fundamental as well as applied research with the support of federal and state agencies, industry and private foundations. The Department’s research may be broadly divided into three thrusts:
- Renewable & Unconventional Energy
- Advanced Materials
- Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Many CBE faculty working in Energy have strong ties with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Agarwal, Herring, Koh, Kwon, Samaniuk, Wolden), located just 10 minutes from Mines. Much of this collaboration is facilitated through Nexus, a strategic Mines-NREL partnership. The variety of research topics includes solar cells, fuel cells, batteries, electrons to molecules, circular economy for energy materials, and biomass conversion. The department houses the world’s foremost center dedicated to understanding the critical role of hydrates in energy production as well as their potential for energy storage and CO2 sequestration (Koh, Sum, D. Wu).
The second core strength focuses on the design and synthesis of Advanced Materials for a host of applications. Examples include atomic layer processing and nanoscale thin films (Agarwal, Wolden), biomaterials (Barbari, Chauhan, Krebs, Farnsworth, Pak), catalysts (Gomez-Gualdron, Herring, Kwon), inorganic and polymeric membranes (Gomez-Gualdron, Herring, Way, Wolden), and nanostructures based on self- and directed assembly (Marr, Pak, Samaniuk, N. Wu, D. Wu). CBE faculty participate and advise graduate students in the interdisciplinary Materials Science program.
The third thrust within the department is Biotechnology. Strong research programs exists in the areas of biomedical devices (Cash, Krebs, Marr, N. Wu), drug delivery (Chauhan, Krebs), tissue engineering (Farnsworth, Krebs), and metabolic engineering (Boyle). Much of this research is done in collaboration with local medical institutions such as the Children’s Hospital of Colorado and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver. CBE faculty participate and advise graduate students in the interdisciplinary Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering program.
Much of the research is organized through internal centers that provide shared facilities and resources for their members. These include the Center for Hydrate Research (CHR), the Colorado Institute for Energy, Materials, and Computational Sciences (CIEMACS), the Colorado Fuel Cell Center (CFCC), and Microintegrated Optics for Advanced Bioimaging and Control (MOABC).
Recent Publications
- Professor Woldens Group: Thermochromic Halide Perovskite Windows with Ideal Transition Temperatures
- Professor Agarwal’s Group: Nanopinhole Passivating Contact Si Solar Cells Fabricated with Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching
- Professor Koh’s Group: Formation of Type II Silicon Clathrate with Lithium Guests through Thermal Diffusion
- Professor Agarwals’ Group: Nanopinhole Passivating Contact Si Solar Cells Fabricated with Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching
- Professor Krebs’ Group: Glycosaminoglycans Influence Extracellular Matrix of Human Trabecular Meshwork Cells Cultured on 3D Scaffolds
- Professor Shaffer’s Group: How Chemical Engineering Students Feel About Biology
- Professor Bunge’s Group: Using molecular simulation to understand the skin barrier
- Professor Bunge’s Group: Multiscale Simulation of Ternary Stratum Corneum Lipid Mixtures: Effects of Cholesterol Composition
- Professor Herring’s Group: Electrochemical Struvite Precipitation Enhanced by an Amelogenin Peptide for Nutrient Recovery
- Professor Koh’s Group: Dual functionality of ultralow levels of a model kinetic hydrate inhibitor on hydrate particle morphology and interparticle force
- Professor Marr’s Group: Delivery and actuation of aerosolized microbots
- Professor Marr’s Group: Multimodal microwheel swarms for targeting in three-dimensional networks
- Professor Boyle’s Group: Biocement from the Ocean: Hybrid Microbial-Electrochemical Mineralization of CO2
Faculty Research Laboratory Overview
Explore the variety of areas of research our faculty and students are involved in by clicking the images below
Dr. Sumit Agarwal
Solar Cells, Electronic Materials, Atomic Layer Processing
Dr. Nanette Boyle
Metabolic Engineering, Flux Analysis, Biofuels, Algae
Dr. Kevin Cash
Diagnostics, Sensing, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Anuj Chauhan
Drug Delivery, Transport, Biomaterials
Dr. Matthew Crane
Nanomaterials, Plasmonics, Next-generation Energy and Computing
Dr. Nikki Farnsworth
Biomaterials, Type 1 Diabetes, Microscopy
Dr. Diego Gomez-Gualdron
Computational Design of Materials, Modeling in Energy Applications, Machine Learning
Dr. Andrew Herring
Polymer Electrolytes, Energy Conversion and Storage, Electrochemical Engineering
Dr. Carolyn Koh
Gas Hydrates in Flow Assurance, Energy Storage, CO2 Sequestration
Dr. Melissa Krebs
Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering, Drug Delivery
Dr. Ramya Kumar
Polymeric Biomaterials, Intracellular Nucleic Acid Delivery and Biointerfaces
Dr. Stephanie Kwon
Sustainable Energy, Heterogeneous Catalysis, Green Catalysis
Dr. David Marr
Biomedical Engineering, Microbots, Colloids
Dr. Alexander Pak
Molecular Dynamics, Self-Assembly, (Bioinspired) Molecular Engineering
Dr. Joseph Samaniuk
Fluid Dynamics, Fluid-Fluid Interfaces, 2D Particles
Dr. Amadeu Sum
Gas Hydrates, Flow Assurance, Molecular Simulation
Dr. Colin Wolden
Solar Cells, Next Generation Batteries, Catalytic Membrane Reactors
Dr. Ning Wu
Self- and Directed Assembly, Nanotechnology, Microrobot
NEXUS
Learn more about the collaboration between Mines and NREL
