Torres' Research Group Website

Victor, Sauda, Rishabh, and Daniel talk about how they got to Carnegie Mellon and their research to middle-schoolers during a Gelfand Outreach workshop. The kids learned about the circular economy, how a distillation column works, and the process of producing renewable biodiesel from used cooking oil. They used Aspen Plus software to simulate the process on a computer and observed the effects of changing the reflux ratio and number of distillation column stages on the product purity and CO2 emissions.

Victor, Sauda, Rishabh, and Daniel talk about how they got to Carnegie Mellon and their research to middle-schoolers during a Gelfand Outreach workshop. The kids learned about the circular economy, how a distillation column works, and the process of producing renewable biodiesel from used cooking oil. They used Aspen Plus software to simulate the process on a computer and observed the effects of changing the reflux ratio and number of distillation column stages on the product purity and CO2 emissions.

Ana is featured in "Women in Chemical Engineering" special issue by Chemical Engineering Research and Design!

"Chemical Engineering Research and Design proudly releases a special issue titled “Women in Chemical Engineering” to recognize and showcase top women researchers across the globe, in different stages of their careers, who are conducting pioneering research in their field of study. This issue has 17 contributions from outstanding women researchers in the research areas of catalysis, separation, process systems, pharmaceuticals, energy, and environmental science and engineering."

To access the full issue follow this link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263876222004579

 

Undergraduate research social.
Melvin Ofosu-Koranteng (right),
Ana Inés Torres (center)
Kevin Chang (left)

Franco Mangone and Pablo Ures show elementary and middle school children how a biorefinery breaks down the bonds of biomass to produce the chemicals required for upgrade to fuels and chemicals.

We made 3D lego inspired pieces to model biomass monomers (glucose in white, xylose in green , lignin components in brown, extractives in black). Individual pieces were assembled and dissassembled to recreate the polymeric structure of biomass. 

The kids where asked to assemble different biomasses (lignocellulosic, starchy) and were shown the operations that were used to break the bonds. The goal was to find a processing pathway that was able to separate all the pieces.  

Jimena and Mariana present to elementary, middle and hich school students how computers can be used to design chemical processes (Expo Innova). We created graphic interfaces so non-specialized public could "play" with different designs. Also had a trivia (bottom right picture) that attracted interest from the general public.