Research by two Purdue Chemical Engineering faculty members, Dr. Rakesh Agrawal and Dr. Vilas Pol, is funded by a newly announced $3 million grant from the Office of Naval Research.

On September 24, 2015, the School of Chemical Engineering presented Norm Kidder (BSChE ’73), John Klier (MSChE ’86, PhD ’89), Seung Bin Park (PhD ’88), Julia Myers Ross (BSChE ’90), Charles E. Smith (BSChE ’80) and Vijay Swarup (BSChE ’86) with the 2015 Outstanding Chemical Engineer Award.

The high cost and scarcity of lithium are driving research to develop alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, especially to meet future needs in energy storage so Dr. Vilas Pol and his group are looking to Sodium-ion batteries as a possible alternative, in large part because of sodium's low cost and natural abundance.

Assistant Professor Bryan Boudouris and Professor Elias Franses are part of a $650,000 effort to help shake more oil loose from basin rocks in an environmentally friendly way. The partnership between Purdue and Indiana based Pioneer Oil is led by Professor Joe Pekny.