Research Areas and Facilities

Excellent facilities are available in support of student and faculty research. Faculty and students have local and remote access to personal and mainframe computer resources. Large-scale computational problems can be solved, via remote Login, at national centers for supercomputer applications. The department has a number of new instruments and research units. These include a high-temperature TGA/DTA, two Cahn micro balances, two scanning electron microscopes with x-ray dispersion analysis capability, a laser doppler velocimeter, a high-performance Berthy reactor, a fully instrumented bioreactor, a wear and friction testing and analysis unit, a high-pressure liquid chromatographic unit, a mercury porosimeter, two surface area analyzers, FTIR spectrometer, and an atomic force microscope/scanning-tunneling microscope. In addition, each research laboratory has appropriate instrumentation specific to the projects. The support equipment in the department, along with faculty activity, provides outstanding research opportunities for graduate students.

Our major partner in biomedical engineering is the Cleveland Clinic (CC). Established in 1919, CC is a world-renowned leader in the practice of medicine and is listed in the top 10 in the nation for at least the past fifteen years. It is dedicated to furthering the science of medicine by research. The Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) is the largest of eight highly interactive departments within the Lerner Research Institute at CC. The Applied Biomedical Engineering (ABE) doctoral program at CSU has been collaboratively offered with CC for over 10 years. Some 30 CC researchers serve as adjunct faculty at CSU. The MS BME program will equally benefit from our collaboration with CC. These collaborations may be in the form of Design projects or Thesis studies.  In addition, some of the graduates of MS BME, particularly in the Thesis Track, are likely to continue their doctoral study in the ABE program.

External agencies presently provide over $1,500,000 to support faculty research activities. Ongoing research projects, with the sponsoring agencies noted in parentheses, include:

• Characterization of zeolites (Engelhard Corporation, BOC, Air Products & Chemicals)
• Adsorption and diffusion in zeolites (State of Ohio, NSF)
• Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging and blood flow mechanics (Siemens, State of Ohio)
• Water and wastewater treatment processes (State of Ohio)
• Microsegregation in directionally solidified alloys (NASA)
• Influence of Convection on Solidification Morphology (NASA)
• Multi-functional Reactors in the Chemical Process Industry (State of Ohio)
• High-temperature lubrication (NASA, CAMP, and FMC-Great Lakes Chemical).
• Modeling of Metabolic Systems (NIH).

Faculty members have presented their research at national and international conferences and have published in such prestigious journals as The American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Chemical Engineering Science, Combustion Science and Technology, Zeolites, Metallurgical Transactions, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Lubrication Engineer-ing, Industrial Engineering Chemistry Research, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Computers and Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering Education, Latin American Applied Research, HVAC&R Research, International Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and International Journal of Engineering Science. Detailed descriptions of ongoing research projects as well as a list of recent faculty publications are available from the department on request or from the department Internet home page at https://engineering.csuohio.edu/chemical

Advisor and Commitee

Students must choose a thesis advisor before completion of 9 credits. Students are encouraged to form an advisory committee as early as possible but not later than the end of the first semester of studies. The thesis topic/proposal is approved by the advisory committee and by the Graduate Affairs Committee of the college. The advisory committee monitors the progress of the thesis, administers the oral defense, and approves the thesis. The student's advisor chairs the committee. Voting members of the advisory committee must be a member of CSU graduate faculty. Either the advisor or the co-advisor must be a tenured or tenure-track CSU faculty member.