Brunelli receives $530,000 NSF CAREER Award

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Nicholas Brunelli, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, received a five-year, $530,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for his research on catalytic material design.

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Prof. Nicholas Brunelli works with PhD student Aamena Parulkar. [photo: Prateek Kumar]
The CAREER award is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of both.

The research targets design of heterogeneous catalysts for the liquid-phase isomerization of glucose to fructose, a key step in the valorization of biomass to chemicals and fuels.

Brunelli and his team will utilize a bio-inspired catalyst design approach that has the potential to reduce the cost of bio-renewable processing and increase its economic competitiveness with fossil fuel sources of bio-derived chemicals and fuels.

The technological impact of the project could be substantial, Brunelli explained, since it will add a new dimension to the ability to tune catalytic performance and provide a method to increase the selectivity for biomass conversion to fructose and decrease associated energy costs. Overall, this would create a more economically viable route than currently available to produce high fructose corn syrup, biomass-derived polymers or commodity chemicals.

The research will be performed by a diverse team of undergraduate and graduate students who will be trained in advanced catalytic material synthesis and testing. The researchers will also create a classroom module for students and a project to introduce the concepts of size-selective separation of zeolitic materials—a critical feature of these materials—to elementary school children to inspire future generations to pursue education in STEM-related fields. The filtration module will be made available online to expand the impact of the outreach efforts.

Brunelli joined The Ohio State University as an assistant professor in 2014. He received a bachelor of science in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Ohio State in 2004 and a PhD in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2010. The NSF CAREER award is the third external grant he has received, including additional funding from the National Science Foundation and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.

contributions from the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering