T E CH

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THE NSF RECOGNIZES GREAT TALENT

BY SHERRY STOKES

This year, three CIT faculty membersFred Higgs, Mohammad Islam, and Ken Maiearned the National Science Foundations Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. These important awards, along with sizable funding, are given to young professors who are doing an exemplary job integrating education and research. We have no doubt that these individuals will make signicant contributions to engineering and inspire students to follow their leads.

Mohammad Islam and his research group synthesize colloids and use them as building blocks to make structures generally formed by atoms.

Put an ice cube on your kitchen counter and it will melt. But how does it melt? What is happening at the microscopic level? When it is melting, is it liquid or solid or something in between? Figuring out how atoms behave in a chunk of ice may not seem the makings of high science, but it is. Especially if you think about ice and basically all materials in a broader, fundamental way: What happens to a materials structure as it changes its form? And what conditions bring about these changes? These are the same principles that govern everything from catalyst reactivity to superconductivity. Fundamental questions intrigue Mohammad Islam, an engineer who turns to science for inspiration. This year, the young researchers penchant for wanting to understand how things work earned him both an NSF CAREER Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Award. Islam, a professor in chemical engineering and materials science and engineering, explains that when alloying elements are added to iron to make steel, making it very strong, changes have occurred to the materials structure at the sub-micron level. There must be reasons why the structure changes and gives rise to new properties that we want. Wouldnt it be great if we could understand this phenomena and tailor it? asks Islam. To this end, he and his research group synthesize colloids, which can be thought of as micron-sized atoms, and use them as building blocks to make structures generally formed by atoms. By working with colloids instead of fast-moving Angstrom-sized atoms, he can view the colloids behavior within a three-dimensional material in real time with an optical microscope. These experiments are not possible in structures formed by atoms because visualizing the atoms would be extremely difcult.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

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From Nanomaterials to Macro-Applications Presently, Islam is working with carbon nanotubes, which are a micron in length and a nanometer in diameter. They are rigid and strong, much stronger than steel. They conduct heat better than diamond, yet their density is close to that of air. Impressed with these attributes, Islam has set out to make macroscopic composite materials that incorporate the same properties of tiny carbon nanotubes. Then the question becomes: Can we put carbon nanotubes into polymers and make the composite material very strong with high heat conductivity but maintain the polymeric malleability? he said. Polymers are generally nonconducting and lack strength. The applications go on: If carbon nanotubes can increase the conductivity of polymers, can they dissipate heat from electronic chips? This would allow a more compact circuitry with higher performance for smaller, more powerful computers. Also, if Islam and his team can quickly and cheaply produce exceptionally strong and light

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carbon nanotube composites, they could be used in aircrafts or cars. He says, If we can make a car that weighs a hundred pounds and its body is strong like steel, wouldnt that be better for the environment? These materials can be used for biological applications, too. He explains that carbon nanotubes can be coated with biological polymers and used to deliver drugs or genes inside human cells. So, then the question becomes, what is the effect of having this foreign material inside your cell? Is it toxic? Can you use these materials for drug delivery without having a negative impact on your health? These are some of the questions we are asking, and we are doing experiments that explore this, concludes Islam.

TRIBOLOGY GAINS FOOTHOLD IN CIT

Tribology. You may not know the word, but engineers are certainly familiar with the concepts that comprise this highly specialized area of study: friction, lubrication, and wear. Many engineers do not understand what tribology is because it is such a broad and diffuse topic. It usually shows up as friction-related problems. Or with mechanical engineering and materials science devices, the great showstopper is adhesion, where surfaces stick together, and thats a tribology problem, too, says C. Fred Higgs III. Joining Carnegie Mellon in 2003, Higgs is the rst professor to teach tribology in mechanical engineering, and he is earning impressive accolades, including the NSFs Early Career Development Award. For the next ve years, Higgs will receive a total of $400,000 from the NSF to develop computer models that will predict how surfaces will wear when they are under a load and rub together. Complicating the matter is the fact that debris or foreign particles will affect wear, too. Higgs says that many industries, ranging from data storage to biotechnology, deal with friction and surface-wear problems caused by abrasive nanoparticles that are sandwiched between rubbing surfaces. Illustrating his point, Higgs explains how articial hips deteriorate over time. In the human hip, the femur (the top of the leg bone) moves around in the cup-like acetabulum, forming the hip joint. In the hip joint, a thick liquid called synovial uid keeps the femur lubricated, reducing friction and easing movement. But in an articial hip, we are not able to create the same conditions. While there are some uids in the joint, they are unable to give complete separation of the surfaces. Because of that contact, you get wear on the articial hip, and nanoparticles begin to accelerate the wear. After 10 or 15 years, the hip needs replaced again, says Higgs. Whether you are fabricating articial hip joints or computer chips, you have particles in between rubbing surfaces that cause wear. We are developing computer models to predict this general problem, and were doing state-of-the-art experiments to validate the models, he says. For example, Higgs developed a sophisticated algorithm on particle augmented mixed lubrication (PAML), which can predict wear in hip joints and in fabricating computer chips. Consequently, Carnegie Mellon, along with Higgs and his recently graduated Ph.D. student, Elon Terrell, led for a patent on the PAML algorithm, which is the engine behind these computer models. The algorithm enables Higgs to develop what he calls in silico modeling simulations, where the actual engineering process, such as the polishing of computer chips or the wear of articial hip joints, is simulated on a computer without

Whether you are fabricating articial hip joints or computer chips, you have particles in between rubbing surfaces that cause wear. We are developing computer models to predict this general problem, and were doing state-of-the-art experiments to validate the models.

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omitting the complex physics involved. By doing in silico modeling (a termed coined by Higgs colleague at the University of Florida), he can run computer experiments that very closely mimic the actual physical experiments that his group is conducting in the lab to validate their models. Some of the companies interested in testing the PAML model on their devices are Hitachi, Seagate, and the Data Storage Institute in Singapore. The work that Higgs and his students are involved in will affect a variety of technologies, including integrated circuits and data storage nanotechnology, coal ow energy systems, dental tribology, and, of course, total joint replacements.

A TALE OF POWER AND PERFORMANCE

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If you look at the way computing machines are built, they fall into two broad groups: hardwired systems that have xed hardware functionality and recongurable systems that enable people to dene what their systems will do at the hardware level. You really havent seen very much of the recongurable world creeping into the hardwired microprocessor world, says Ken Mai, a professor in electrical and computer engineering. He explains that recongurable logic has lower performance and efciency than logic hardwired for the same function. But, then again, recongurability has its prosuser-dened functionality, fast time to market, and the ability to x bugs and upgrade hardware if necessary. Early in his career, Mai began exploring the notion of transferring some aspects of recongurability onto the hardwired side, and he focused his attention on the memory system. The memory system is fairly amenable to adding congurability to it because there arent that many different things you want to do with memory, says Mai. He believes that making the memory recongurable will have small impact on performance and that users could gain a lot in performance and efciency. This year, Mai received an NSF Early Career Development Award, Ken Mai along with $400,000, to explore options for adding recongurability to memory systems at various levels of their design, including the circuit, microarchitecture, and architecture levels. One of the more compelling reasons for enhancing the memory system, says Mai, is that if you look at the way computers are designed, we are at an inection pointwe are not really sure what we need to do next. He explains that in terms of microprocessor design we have hit two walls. One problem that limits how applications perform is that we cant pull data from the memory system as quickly as we run calculations. The memory has not scaled the same way as microprocessor cores have, says Mai. The second wall deals with processor speed. For a number of years, people have been increasing the clock frequency or the processor rate, says Mai. Today, processing speed isnt growing as it once had. If you look now, companies arent trying to sell their processors based on clock frequency, he says. At this point, trying to increase performance by scaling up the clock rate unacceptably increases the power. Eventually we get to the point where the microprocessors can no longer be cooled sufciently in a normal desktop system. With these fundamental constraints identied, the question becomes, how do we build computing systems that are robust, easy to operate, reliable, and economically feasible? This question fuels a large portion of Mais research, and his NSF-funded project will reveal the role recongurable memory systems may play in advancing microprocessor design.

You really havent seen very much of the recongurable world creeping into the hardwired microprocessor world.

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CAN WE BURY THE CO2 PROBLEM?

BY MIKE VARGO

EPP scholars are deep into efforts for carbon capture and storage

At Carnegie Mellons Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP), where faculty are working on policies to curb climate change, the recurring theme is one of urgency. We are going to have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% or so over the next few decades to have a fair chance of minimizing dire effects, says EPP department head Granger Morgan. That will be quite a stretch. One problem is electric power generation, as new clean-energy sources wont come online fast enough to meet all of the demand for electricity in the crucial years ahead. Its hard to see how we can get through without continuing to use coal for the medium term, Morgan says. Thus, a bridging strategy is needed to deal with the CO2 that will be produced. Morgan, his colleague Professor Edward Rubin, and several of their graduate students and faculty collaborators in EPP are helping to lay the groundwork for a novel approach: Why not put it back deep underground where it came from?

GOING UNDERGROUND
The process is called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). It could be used for any large source of emission, such as a coal-red power plant. The rst steps are to separate the carbon dioxide from other emission gases, then compress it to a supercritical uid. The uid would then be piped to a storage site perhaps many miles away where it would be pumped down more than half a mile into a geological formation deemed able to hold the CO2 for millennia to come. Formations could range from deep saline aquifers (underground sand and rock formations with water too salty to ever use) to depleted oil or gas beds. Over time, the trapped CO2 dissolves into the brackish waters and gradually forms solid carbonate rocks, thus ensuring that it stays in place. Granger Morgan Coal-red power plants now produce about one-third of the CO2 emissions in the United States. A CCS system could eliminate 85% to 90% of the CO2 from a given plant. And though the technology cant easily or economically be retrotted onto existing coal-burners, just applying it to new or replacement plants (of which many are upcoming, here and abroad) could put a sizable dent in greenhouse emissions. Also, Morgan notes that CCS can help de-carbonize the transportation system, where engines burning petroleum fuels currently produce another one-third of our CO2. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles would require adding more electric generating capacity to charge the batteries, but CCS could clean up the emissions in a few central plants, something impossible to do at thousands of tail pipes. CCS also could provide a carbon-free source of hydrogen for future cars powered by fuel cells. Although technology for capturing CO2 has long been used in manufacturing processes to purify gas streams, at present only a handful of CCS systems worldwide are sequestering the CO2 rather than emitting it to the air. Cost has been a major obstacle to wider use, especially at power plants. A new coal-combustion plant would use about one-fourth of its power output driving the equipment to separate and compress the CO2, says Rubin. Companies would have to build bigger plants than usual up front and charge more for the electricity. Interest in the process is rising, however. The United States is moving to regulate CO2 emissions, prompting a urry of action. And EPPs policy-oriented engineers are at the heart of efforts to see that the technology is adopted both quickly and wisely.

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DOING IT RIGHT
Ed Rubin has been busy on many fronts. He is director of the EPP research team, which developed the computer-based Integrated EnvironEd Rubin

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mental Control Model (IECM), with Department of Energy support, to project the performance and costs of various types of power plants and emission controls, including CCS. IECM is a state-of-the-art tool used worldwide, and Rubin has become an expert on CO2 avoidance. He helped prepare a special report on carbon capture and storage for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and was the lead author of its overall technical summary as well as its report on CCS economics. His role as an IPCC author earned him the honor of sharing in the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC along with Al Gore. Recently, Rubin also briefed the National Academy of Engineering on CCS. Along with Morgan, EPPs Jay Apt, and others including present and former EPP graduate students, some now in key positions elsewhere Rubin has been a national and international leader in promoting high-level understanding of CCS. Among his ndings: Where possible, new coal plants should not literally burn the coal to generate electricity. Rather they should be IGCC (Integrated Gasication Combined Cycle) plants, which process the coal to make a gas, which is burned to drive one turbine, after which the hot gas is used make steam to drive a second turbine (the combined cycle part). A conventional combustion plant would normally be about 20% cheaper than an IGCC, but when you add carbon capture and storage, the relative economics shifts the other way in most cases, Rubin explains because its easier to separate the CO2 in an IGCC plant. Two projects to build IGCC plants with capture and storage are under way in the United States. One is the FutureGen project by the Department of Energy and a private consortium, the other a private-led project by BP and the Edison Mission Group. Both plants are planned to start up by 2011 or 2012. But Rubin argues that thats not enough. We need to build about 10 full-scale demonstrations across the country, in different utility environments using different coals, some in combustion plants and some in IGCC plants, and sequestering the CO2 in different geologies, Rubin says. Thats the only way to answer a lot of the how do I know it will work for me? and what will it really cost? questions that utility companies have. Rubin is working with the Pew Center on Global Climate Change to try to create a funding mechanism for such a build-out. And there is much more to be done.

WORKING ACROSS THE SPECTRUM QUICKLY

Other areas of interest at EPP include: Policies to assess and manage the risks of storing CO2 underground. We dont want it seeping back into the air, or migrating into groundwater, says Rubin, Right now, the riskmanagement structure is in an emergent state. Well need good processes for selecting storage sites, agreement on how and who should monitor them (and whos responsible for them after they are full), insurance plans, remediation plans, and so forth. Our whole approach to regulating CO2 emissions is also up for grabs. Morgan wrote an editorial for Science, noting that some power companies may rush to build new (but old-style) plants before emission rules take effect, in hopes theyll be exempt. He urged that such grandfathering not be allowed. EPP scholars are striving for rules that could drive a decisive shift to clean-coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage. Rubin believes the best way to accomplish this is by adopting strict CO2 standards for all new plants, plus a portfolio standard to ratchet down emissions from existing plants, with incentives to do more, sooner. For regulation of CCS itself, Morgan and Rubin favor a unied federal approach but also an adaptive approach. Dont try to work it all out in advance, they say. We need to get a number of these [CSS systems] up and running, get some experience, and adjust. Were moving much more slowly than we need to. Again, the note of urgency. In this view, the gravest risk of all would be to let CO2 emissions keep building. The people in EPP cant dictate what the country, does but they are well placed to make a difference. They publish and network profusely; they have strong links to government and industry. (Morgan, for instance, is chair of the EPAs Science Advisory Board as well as the Advisory Board to the Electric Power Research Institute.) Finally, they are tied to the other engineering departments at Carnegie Mellon, creating a rare mix that can help to move both the technology and the policies forward.

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