Assistant Professor Ankur Gupta has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Johannes Lyklema Early Career Award in Electrokinetics, given by the International Electrokinetics Society. 

Electrokinetics, which focuses on the study of the movement of particles, ions, or fluids under the influence of an electric field or chemical gradients, has applications in energy storage, environmental technologies and microfluidic devices.

Gupta was given the award for his contribution towards "new insights in diffusiophoresis, including links to Turing patterns, and charge transport in porous energy systems."

"I am honored to receive this award," Gupta said. "It is heartening to be recognized by the electrokinetics community. I would like to thank all the students and postdocs in the group for their hard work, which made this award possible, and extend my gratitude to the mentors and colleagues who nominated me for the award."

The award will be presented on Sept. 18 at the ELKIN meeting in Sevilla, Spain, and as part of that honor, Gupta will give a lecture. In addition to the honorary talk, Gupta will deliver a lecture about the research developed by his CU Boulder group, the Laboratory of Interfaces, Flow and Electrokinectics.  

Johannes Lyklema, the award's namesake, was a passionate supporter of young scientists in the electrokinetics field.

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Modified Kirchhoff's law; how the rules have been changed at the intersections.

                 Ankur Gupta 

Imagine if your dead laptop or phone could charge in a minute or if an electric car could be fully powered in 10 minutes.

While not possible yet, new research by a team of CU Boulder scientists could potentially lead to such advances. 

Published today in the , researchers in Ankur Gupta’s lab discovered how tiny charged particles, called ions, move within a complex network of minuscule pores. The breakthrough could lead to the development of more efficient energy storage devices, such as supercapacitors, said Gupta, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering. 

“Given the critical role of energy in the future of the planet, I felt inspired to apply my chemical engineering knowledge to advancing energy storage devices,” Gupta said. “It felt like the topic was somewhat underexplored and as such, the perfect opportunity.”

Gupta explained that several chemical engineering techniques are used to study flow in porous materials such as oil reservoirs and water filtration, but they have not been fully utilized in some energy storage systems.

The discovery is significant not only for storing energy in vehicles and electronic devices but also for power grids, where fluctuating energy demand requires efficient storage to avoid waste during periods of low demand and to ensure rapid supply during high demand.  

Supercapacitors, energy storage devices that rely on ion accumulation in their pores, have rapid charging times and longer life spans compared to batteries. 

“The primary appeal of supercapacitors lies in their speed,” Gupta said. “So how can we make their charging and release of energy faster? By the more efficient movement of ions.”

Their findings modify Kirchhoff’s law, which has governed current flow in electrical circuits since 1845 and is a staple in high school students’ science classes. Unlike electrons, ions move due to both electric fields and diffusion, and the researchers determined that their movements at pore intersections are different from what was described in Kirchhoff’s law.

Prior to the study, ion movements were only described in the literature in one straight pore. Through this research, ion movement in a complex network of thousands of interconnected pores can be simulated and predicted in a few minutes.

“That’s the leap of the work,” Gupta said. “We found the missing link.”

This work was funded by National Science Foundation CAREER Award # 2238412.

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Five chemical and biological engineering graduate students and one ChBE undergraduate student have received 2024 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, a prestigious award that recognizes and supports outstanding students in a wide variety of science-related disciplines. This year the NSF awarded 27 University of Colorado Boulder students, including 18 from the College of Engineering and Applied Science, with the graduate research fellowship.

Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 and full coverage of tuition, fees and insurance, along with opportunities for international research and professional development that span five years. 

Emma Aldrich

Biological Engineering
Advisor: Kayla Sprenger

My research leverages computational tools to address questions in immunology, inflammation and cancer. Specifically, I aim to investigate novel therapeutics between Alzheimer’s Disease and glioma, using physics-based simulations to identify and target mechanisms that disrupt the tumor immunoediting process. One of my current projects is investigating how TREM2, a protein expressed on the immune cells of the brain, can mediate tumor suppression mechanisms of a platinum-IV chemotherapeutics in colorectal cancer. Creative applications of computational pipelines allow me to ask new questions at the interface of immunology, oncology and engineering, hopefully leading to solutions to urgent challenges. 

Timotej Bernat

Chemical Engineering
Advisor: Michael R. Shirts

My research focuses on development of software and techniques for constructing and modeling general organic polymer systems at the atomic, molecular and nanoscale using molecular dynamics. Polymer design is essential to many active research areas including identifying suitable sustainable and recyclable plastics, compatibilizing polymer-biopolymer interfaces for biomedical engineering and therapeutics, and designing self-healing materials with dynamic covalent networks. However, systematic exploration of chemical and morphological polymer design spaces is practically impossible using experimental methods alone and requires assistance from computational structure-function models. I am currently active in two sustainability-driven collaborations with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), dealing with high-throughput screening of biomass-derived replacements for petroleum plastic monomers and lignin-derived replacements for common commercial plasticizers, respectively.

Zoe Cruse

Chemical and Biological Engineering (undergraduate)
Advisors: Wyatt Shields and Ankur Gupta

The goal of my research is to build a deeper understanding of active particle systems for improving targeted systems, such as targeted drug delivery. By leveraging both computational frameworks and experimental methodologies, I will gain a holistic understanding of how we can fabricate microparticle systems and integrate them into biological environments safely and effectively. In doing so, I hope to develop a framework that allows researchers to bridge the gap between the lab bench and patient bedsides. I look forward to starting my  PhD at the University of Michigan this fall! 

Olivia Irvin

Biological Engineering
Advisor: Timothy Whitehead

In my research, I use protein engineering to make better influenza vaccine immunogens. I use computational design tools, yeast display and deep sequencing techniques to redesign viral proteins. Upon immunization with these proteins, the immune system should more robustly target regions of the influenza protein that offer broader protection against a variety of flu strains. 

David Saeb

Chemical Engineering
Advisor: Kayla Sprenger

My research uses computational tools, namely molecular dynamics simulations, to determine the protein-ligand binding mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, I aim to understand how an immune receptor protein known as TREM2, and its soluble form, modulate neuroinflammation. The ultimate goal of my project is to combine computational and wet lab tools to design novel Alzheimer's therapeutics. 

Katie Trese

Biological Engineering
Advisor: Wyatt Shields

Some immune cell types are particularly good at migrating to sites of inflammation, such as solid cancer tumors. The goal of my project is to harness this capability of immune cells to bring drug-loaded nanoparticles directly to diseased tissue. To do so, I will investigate nanoparticle engineering, the ability of sound waves to purify cells, and the effect of nanoparticles on immune cell behavior. My hope is that the work done in this project will improve accessibility and patient outcomes for cell-based immunotherapies for a variety of treatment scenarios. 

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Arkava Ganguly, a third-year PhD student in the Gupta research group, also known as the Laboratory of Interface, Flow and Electrokinetics (LIFE), has been honored with the prestigious 2024 Teets Family Endowed Doctoral Fellowship. This highly sought-after fellowship, providing $15,000 over a two-year period, is intended to support students engaged in research within the field of nanotechnology.

"The Teets fellowship gives me the independence to work on some exciting research ideas through which I hope to gain a deeper understanding of surface interactions at the colloidal scale to develop effective sequestration technologies,” Ganguly said.

Ganguly's research utilizes a combination of theoretical and computational tools to unravel the intricacies of micro- and nanoparticle motion. His specific focus lies in investigating how various factors, such as particle shape, surface heterogeneities and interactions impact not only particle movement but also their interactions with the surrounding environment and other particles.

Actively controlled micro- and nanoparticles hold vast potential in diverse fields like biomedicine and environmental remediation, said Assistant Professor Ankur Gupta, Ganguly's advisor. Ongoing developments in this domain underscore the importance of comprehending the physics behind particle propulsion and their interactions with the environment. This understanding can help engineer particles capable of navigating complex environments, with applications ranging from targeted drug delivery to fine-tuning surface properties for efficiently sequestering plastics from water sources, he added.

“I am proud of Arkava for his commitment to his research as he has made contributions to several different topics in our group," Gupta said. "This award underscores his excellent progress to date.”

After completing his PhD, Ganguly envisions a career leveraging his expertise in fluid mechanics, transport phenomena and surface science. He aspires to focus on projects centered around sustainability and environmental remediation, aligning his skills with real-world applications.

“I would like to thank the Teets family and the College of Engineering and Applied Science for their generous support," Ganguly said. "I would also like to thank Professor Gupta for his mentorship and guidance. Finally, I want to thank my lab members for their help with my work and unwavering encouragement."

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Two CU Boulder faculty members from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering were recently selected for the prestigious “35 Under 35” awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Assistant Professors Kayla Sprenger and Ankur Gupta have been recognized by AIChE as two of the 35 outstanding chemical engineering professionals under the age of 35. The 2023 award celebrates their significant contributions to the field as well as to AIChE, and acknowledges them as role models and innovators “who will pave the way for future generations.”

Gupta’s research group studies interfacial phenomena, including electrochemical interfaces, colloidal motion, and microhydrodynamics for applications in energy storage, desalination and lab-on-a-chip technologies. He and his group aspire to delve into the design of porous electrodes using electrolyte transport phenomena, with the goal of advancing energy storage technologies. 

“Being selected by the AIChE for the 35 under 35 award is an incredible honor, not just for me, but for my entire research group," Gupta said.  "It's a recognition of the effort that's gone into our research on the broad and vital topic of electrochemical interfaces and colloidal physics for energy and environmental applications. This award serves as a motivation to continue pushing the frontiers of chemical engineering, and I'm deeply grateful for this acknowledgement.”

focuses on multi-scale computational approaches to design immunotherapeutics against a wide variety of infectious and neurological diseases. She hopes to publish and establish her lab’s research in the areas of computational immunology and machine learning-driven vaccine design. 

"It means so much to me to be selected by the AIChE for the 35 Under 35 award," Sprenger said. "My research is highly multidisciplinary, incorporating elements from physics, (bio)chemistry, neuroscience and immunology. Despite this breadth, my lab's approach to solving problems in these realms is deeply rooted in applying engineering-based principles. To me, then, this award is a reflection of this fact, as well as a nice nod to my continued commitment to the broader chemical engineering community."

The two will be honored at a Nov. 6 reception for alumni and friends at the 2023 AIChE annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

You can read more about the award winners .

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