News
Latest News
October 2023
New Postdocs, Jinyin and Preety joins the group. Welcome!
UB Annual CBE Graduate Symposium: Dinesh won the Student Choice Research Award for his work on Carbon Capture Membrane. Richard won the Materials Division award for his work on Carbon Capture Adsorbents. Bratin gave the symposium's student talk on his work on size based molecular separations.
September 2023
Yu group received $500k from Department of Energy as their initiative for carbon management to convert CO2 captured from air into methanol. This is a first phase of a $8 million fund.
Our recent work on solvent resistant carbon-doped metal oxide nanofilms for nanofiltration is published in Science.
Media Coverage of the work:
August 2023
Pranav Ramesh defends his P.hD. thesis from RPI. He moves to Terapore as a Research Scientist. Congratulations!
The Yu Group recieves $100k from SUNY to scale up carbon capture membranes.
July 2023
Prof. Yu gives a keynote lecture on the group's work on organic solvent nanofiltration in ICOM-2023 in Japan.
May 2023
Rick Ciora gives an invited talk at the chemical engineering departmental seminar at UB.
February 2023
Bratin Sengupta wrote an article for India’s The Telegraph about how seawater desalination can, to an extent, solve India’s drinking water crisis.
Latest Publications
September 2023
Bratin's work on carbon-doped metal oxide nanofilms for organic solvent nanofiltration is published in Science. Congratulations!
June 2023
Dinesh's work on tuning structural defects of single layer graphene oxide membrane is published in ACS Applied Material and Interface. Congratulations!
May 2023
Surya's work on optimization of Na+ gated membrane for Ammonia separation is published in Journal of Membrane Science. Congratulations!
March 2023
Huanghe's work on process design and simulation of two stage membrane process for carbon capture is published in Journal of Membrane Science. Congratulations!
November 2022
Surya's work on Ammonia separation at high temperature and pressure using Na+ gated membrane is published in Chemical Engineering Journal. Congratulations!
Archived News
2022
May 2022
Bratin Sengupta won the Elias Klein Founders' Travel Supplement award in NAMS 2022. Congratulations!
Surya Padinjarekutt won the 2nd place for poster award in NAMS 2022. Congratulations!
June 2022
Dr. Huazheng Li moves to PepsiCo. as R&D Associate. Congratulations!
July 2022
Prof. Yu won 2022 AIChE Separations Division FRI/Neil Yeoman Innovation Award. Congratulations!
Dr. Rumwald Lecaros joins our lab as a Postdoctoral Associate. Welcome!
August 2020
We received DOE award on Carbon dioxide capture from natural gas flue gas. Congratulations!
Our group received a research grant from DOE ARPA-E to fabricate a membrane reactor prototype for Hydrogen production from Ammonia. Congratulations!
March 2023
Surya Padinjarekutt successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis. She worked on Na+ membranes for Ammonia separation under harsh conditions. Congratulations Surya!
October 2022
Huanghe Li successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis. He worked on developing membrane based carbon capture technologies. Congratulations Huanghe!
December 2022
Bratin Sengupta gives a invited talk at the chemical engineering departmental seminar at UB.
2020
February 2020
Huazheng's paper on CO2 conversion to liquid fuels using rationally designed NaA membranes was published by Science. Congratulations!
April 2020
Shenxiang's paper on CO2 capture membrane was accepted by Advanced Functional Materials. Congratulations!
May 2020
Qiaobei's paper on hierarchical nanoporous structure and Ji's paper on zeolite membrane synthesis were accepted by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Congratulations!
We received DOE award on DMC production from CO2 conversion.
August 2020
We received DOE award on CO2 capture from air.
November 2020
Huazheng's paper on DME synthesis in membrane reactor was accepted by JMCA. Congratulations!
December 2020
Professor Yu will join University at Buffalo in Jan 2021 as an Empire Innovation Professor. Yu's group moved to Buffalo.
2019
February 2019
Our group received the DOE award on developing adsorbents for CO2 capture. Read the RPI announcement here.
March 2019
Fanglei Zhou successfully defended his Ph.D thesis. Congratulations!
June 2019
Weiwei Xu will be starting a new position as Principle Engineer at the Gas Technology Institute. Congratulations!
October 2019
Mary Margaret Sta. Cruz and Fan Wang join the group as graduate students. Welcome!
Fanglei Zhou will be starting a new position as Senior Research Engineer at Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. in November. Congratulations!
2018
October 2018
Rick Ciora and Pranav Ramesh join the group as new graduate students. Welcome!
September 2018
New postdocs, Shangwen Zha and Shenxiang Zhang, joined group. Welcome!
March 2018
Multiple postdoc positions available on GO-based membranes for CO2 capture. Please contact Professor Yu if you are interested in the position.
March 2018
We received DOE award on developing GO membranes for CO2 capture.
2017
December 2017
New postdoc, Ji Jiang and Hongchao Mao, joined group. Welcome!
November 2017
Fanglei's paper on CO2 capture using ultrathin graphene oxide hollow fiber membranes was accepted by Nature Communications. Congratulations!
November 2017
Weiwei successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations!
November 2017
Dinesh Behera, Surya Padinjarekutt, Bratin Sengupta and Andrew Li join the group as new graduate students. Welcome!
August 2017
We have officially moved to RPI on Aug 16, 2017.
July 2017
A postdoc position on CO2 capture by graphene-oxide membranes is available at RPI. The position starts in the middle of August, 2017. Please send a cover letter and CV to Prof. Yu, if you are interested.
May 2017
Dr. Yu accepted an associate professor (with tenure) position at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and will join RPI in August, 2017. Congratulations!
May 2017
Weiwei's paper on ultrathin GO membrane preparation by self-assembly was published in Nano Letters. Congratulations!
April 2017
New postdoc, Syed Islam, joined group. Welcome!
February 2017
New postdocs, Eyas Mahmoud and Huazheng Li, joined group. Welcome!
January 2017
Mahdi, Weiwei and Fanglei’s review paper on GO for water purification was published on Advanced Materials Interfaces. Congratulations!
January 2017
New graduate student, Mozhdeh Parizad, joined group. Welcome!
2016
December 2016
We received an ARPA-E award on DME production.
December 2016
We received an ARPA-E award (USC is the lead organization) on high purity H2 generation from NH3 decomposition.
September 2016
New graduate student, Mehdi Zare, joined group. Welcome!
August 2016
New graduate student, Qiaobei Dong, joined group. Welcome!
May 2016
New postdoc, Jarvis Chen, joined group. Welcome!
May 2016
Zhuonan’s paper on CH4 storage was accepted by Nano Letters. Congratulations! (featured in Chemical & Engineering News)
April 2016
Zhuonan Successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis. Congratulations!
2015
December, 2015
Lei Wang successfully defended his M.S. thesis. Congratulations!
November 2015
Xiaojie’s paper on B4C/C3N4 photocatalyst for solar CO2 conversion was accepted by Journal of Colloid and Interface Science without revision. Congratulations!
November 2015
Huynh Ngoc Tien joined the group as a postdoc. Welcome!
October 2015
Our GO membrane technology-based British company, G2O Water International Limited (G2O) (http://g2o.co), in which Prof. Yu is the CTO, was awarded by Innovate UK to develop low-cost graphene oxide membranes.
(Related news from AZONANO; Proactiveinvestors).
September 2015
Konstantin Khivantsev joined the group as a postdoc. Welcome!
August, 2015
Our center, Catalysis for Renewable Fuels (CReF), in collaboration with University of Kansas, was awarded a 4-year grant to develop catalysts for biomass conversion. Our group is one of the three major participants of the project at USC (link). Congratulations!
August 2015
Zhuonan’s paper on zeolite composite sorbents was accepted by Scientific Reports. Congratulations.
August 2015
We received DOE award to develop graphene oxide membranes for CO2 capture. Congratulations!
July 2015
Yi and Lei’s paper on zeolite membranes prepared by high aspect ratio seeds was accepted by Angewandte Chemie International Edition (featured as Back Cover). Congratulations!
February 2015
Postdoc, Mahdi Fathizadeh, joined the group. Welcome!
2014
December 2014
Prof. Yu received NSF Career Award on graphene-based membranes. Congratulations!
November 2014
Yi’s paper on oil/water separation using graphene oxide coatings has been accepted by Advanced Materials Interfaces. Congratulations!
November 2014
Zhuonan’s paper on MLD modified zeolite paper was accepted by Chemical Communications. Congratulations!
October 2014
We received DOE award on O2 production using membrane contactor. Congratulations!
July 2014
Hang’s paper on graphene oxide modification by UV irradiation was accepted by Chemical Communications. Congratulations!
June 2014
Hang successfully defended his MS thesis. Congratulations!
June 2014
We received NSF award on preparing zeolite composite adsorbents. Congratulations!
May 2014
REU student, Democritos Tsellos, joined the group. Welcome!
April 2014
Undergraduate student, Jacquline Plyler, won the poster presentation for the Engineering and Math Division at Discovery Day. Congratulations!
January 2014
Weiwei Xu joins the group as a new graduate student. Welcome!
January 2014
Hang received SPARC Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations!