Scott A. Gold, Ph.D.
 Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering
and Nanosystems Engineering
Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM)
Louisiana Tech University
Ruston, LA, USA 71270


Research Areas

Research Group

Publications

Teaching

Other Activities

Links

Contact Info

 

Biographical Info

Dr. Gold is a native of southern Indiana.  He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky and remains a proud Wildcat sports fan.  He earned an M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech before heading west to complete his Ph.D. work at Arizona State University, also in chemical engineering.  This was followed by a post-doctoral research position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Dr. Gold joined the faculty at Louisiana Tech in the fall of 2004. 

Research Areas

Nanofabrication and Surface Chemistry

Nanotechnology is one of the most exciting fields of research today.  Applications of nanotechnology are being investigated, and in some cases commercialized in nearly every field you can imagine, including medicine, electronics, power generation, construction, chemical sensors, and many, many others.  Research in our group is focused on development of nanostructured materials using template wetting nanofabrication.  This novel process utilizes wetting phenomena to coat the pore walls of a nanoporous template.  The template can then be selectively removed leaving behind the coating material in the form of nanotubes or nanowires.  A key aspect of this process is controlling the wetting behavior of the precursor solution on the nanoporous template.  A wide variety of nanostructured materials have been made in our lab at Louisiana Tech using this technique, including metals, polymers, piezoelectrics, and ceramics.  Pictured on the right are nanotubes of  poly(2-methoxy-5- (2´-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene), or MEH-PPV, a widely studied semiconducting polymer material. 

Nanostructured Catalysts and Microchemical Systems

The application of microfabrication technology to building microscale chemical reaction systems has opened up a broad range of possibilities for the future.  Microreactors have long been used as an analytical tool to study reaction kinetics and catalyst performance.  Recently, there has been an explosion in research on a variety of other applications for microscale chemical systems.  Several applications are being investigated in Dr. Gold's lab.  These include development of small chemical fuel cells and enzymatic bio-fuel cells, microscale chemical and biological sensors, and microreactors for hydrogen production and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (making fuels such as gasoline and other long chain hydrocarbons from syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide readily obtained from coal and other solid biomass).Two areas of particular interest are the development of micro fuel cells for chip-scale power generation and the fabrication of microchemical and biological sensors.  Pictured to the left are platinum nanotubes being investigated for catalytic properties in fuel cells and in other applications.

Nanostructured Polymer Electronics

The 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Alan Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid, and Hideki Shirakawa for their discovery of electrically conductive polymers.  A number of conducting and semiconducting polymers have since been discovered.  These materials present many exciting possibilities with potential applications in flexible or foldable electronics, solar cells, photodiodes, and many other electronics technologies.  Students in Dr. Gold's research group are fabricating and studying nanostructures and devices using these materials.  The picture on the right shows an array of  nanotubes made of a semiconducting polythiophene polymer.

Research Group

Graduate Students


Steven Bearden
Ph.D. Engr. Candidate
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana Tech, Ruston, LA 2006


Eric Broaddus
 Ph.D. Engr.Candidate
B.S. Chemistry, Northwestern State, Natchitoches, LA 2005

Joseph Cannon
Ph.D.Engr. Candidate
B.S. Electrical Eng., Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2004

Jason Howard
 Ph.D. Biomed. Eng. Candidate
B.S. Electrical Engineering, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 2006

Brittany A. Wilson
 Ph.D. Engr. Candidate
B.S. Chem. Eng.., Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2005

Undergraduate Students


Jessie McCormick
B.S. candidate in Chemical Engineering,

Spring 2009

Colby Prejeant
B.S. candidate in Chemical Engineering,

Spring 2009

Katherine (Kay) Pouriraji
B.S. candidate in Chemical Engineering,

Spring 2009

Congratulations to Jessie, Colby, and Kay for winning LaSPACE (Lousisiana Space Consortium) Undergraduate Research Assistantship Awards for 2008-09!

 

Would you like your picture to be here?  Are you thinking about graduate school?  Click here to learn more about graduate programs in engineering and science in general, and specifically at Louisiana Tech.

Alumni

Joseph Cook
B.S. Chemical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2007

Arpan Gurjar
 MSNT Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2007
B.S. Biomed. Eng., Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2004.

Chaitanya Komat Reddy
 M.S. (Chem. Eng.) Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 2007
B.T. Chem. Eng., Osmania University, Hyderabad, India 2004.

 

Selected Publications

Archival Journals

Kuan-Lun Chu, Scott Gold, Vaidyanathan Subramanian, Mark A. Shannon, Richard I. Masel, “A nanoporous silicon membrane electrode assembly for on-chip micro fuel cell applications,” Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 671-677, 2006.

Scott A. Gold, Z. Ni, and R.I. Masel, “Microreaction Engineering,” Encyclopedia of Chemical Processing, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, pp. 1643-1661, 2005.

Scott A. Gold and V.A. Burrows, Influence of K+ Ions on the Interaction of Water with Silicon Dioxide at Low Temperatures Relevant to CMP,  Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 151, no. 11,  pp. G762-765, 2004.

Scott A. Gold and V.A. Burrows, Diffusion of Water in Silicon Dioxide at Low Temperatures Relevant to CMP, Electrochemical and Solid State Letters, pp. G295-G298, 2004.

Scott Gold, Kuan-Lun Chu, Chang Lu, Mark A. Shannon, and Richard I. Masel, Acid Loaded Porous Silicon as a Proton Exchange Membrane for Micro Fuel Cells, Journal of Power Sources, vol. 135, no. 1-2, pp. 198-203, Sept. 3, 2004.

D. Castillo-Mejia, S. Gold, V. Burrows, and S. Beaudoin, The Effect of Interactions Between Water and Polishing Pads on CMP Removal Rates,  Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 150, no. 2, pp. G76-G82, 2002

Selected Presentations

Scott A. Gold, "Nanostructured Materials via Template Wetting Nanofabrication", invited talk at University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa, Fall 2007.

Pedro A. Derosa, Bharat K. Kolan, Scott A. Gold, Diffusion of Species in Nanostructures, 2007 AIChE Spring National Meeting, Houston, TX, USA, April 22-27, 2007

Joseph Cannon, Scott A. Gold, and Sandra Selmic, Optoelectronic Polymer Nanowires Via Temple Wetting, 2006 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, Nov. 12-17, 2006.

Eric Broaddus, Arpan Gurjar, Brittany Wilson, and Scott A. Gold, Nanostructures for Micro and Miniature Fuel Cells by Template Wetting, 2006 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, Nov. 12-17, 2006.

S.A. Gold, “Nanoporous silicon electrode structures for micro-fuel cell applications,” 2005 AIChE Annual Meeting, Cincinnati, OH, USA, Oct. 30-Nov. 4, 2005.

S.A. Gold, K.L. Chu, M.A. Shannon, and R.I. Masel, Nanoporous silicon as a proton exchange membrane for micro-scale fuel cells, 206th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society. Oct. 3-8 2004, Honolulu, HI, USA.

S.A. Gold, K.L. Chu, M.A. Shannon, and R.I. Masel, Nanoporous silicon membranes for micro-fuel cell applications, 2004 AIChE Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, USA, Nov. 7-12, 2003

S.A. Gold, K.L. Chu, M.A. Shannon, and R.I. Masel, Nanoporous silicon membrane electrode assemblies for micro-scale fuel cells, 2004 AIChE Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, USA Nov. 7-12, 2003

C.Lu, Scott A. Gold, K.L. Chu, M.A. Shannon, and R.I. Masel, Porous silicon as a proton exchange membrane for micro fuel cells, 2003 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 15-21, 2003

Scott A. Gold and V.A. Burrows, Effect of pH on the Interaction of Water in KOH(aq) Solutions with Silicon Dioxide, 2003 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 15-21, 2003

Scott A. Gold and V.A. Burrows, Influence of K+ Ions on the Interaction of Water with Silicon Dioxide at Low Temperatures Relevant to CMP, 2003 AIChE Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 15-21, 2003

Scott A. Gold and V.A. Burrows, Diffusion of Water in Silicon Dioxide at Low Temperatures, 2002 AIChE Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, Nov. 3-8, 2002

Scott A. Gold, J. Kelchner, D. Castillo-Mejia, S.P. Beaudoin and V.A. Burrows, Pad-Slurry Interactions During CMP, 2002 AIChE Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, Nov. 3-8, 2002

D. Castillo-Mejia, S.A. Gold, V.A. Burrows, and S.P. Beaudoin, Effects of Water Interactions with Polishing Pads on Wafer-Scale Chemical Mechanical Planarization Rates, Fifth International Symposium on Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP), 201st Meeting of the Electrochemical Society. May 12-17 2002

Teaching

Course websites are available on Louisiana Tech University's blackboard server:  http://blackboard.latech.edu/

ENGR 610 - Ph.D Seminar

ENGR 501 - Research Methods

CMEN 504 - Advanced Chemical Engineering Kinetics

CMEN 413 - Unit Operations - Design III (Chemical Separations)

CMEN 304 - Transport Phenomena (Undergraduate Mass Transport)

CMEN 513 - Transport Phenomena

UNIV 100 - University Seminar

Other Activitites

AIChE Student Chapter - Faculty Advisor

2007 AIChE Programming Chair - Area 20b (Reaction Engineering)

2006 AIChE Programming Vice-Chair - Area 20b (Reaction Engineering)

Tau Beta Pi - Faculty Advisor

Omega Chi Epsilon (chemical engineering honor society) - Faculty Advisor

College of Engineering and Science Graduate Studies Team

Louisiana Tech Behavioral Standards Committee

IfM Leadership Team - Associate Member

Links

Louisiana Tech University

University Home Page
College of Engineering and Science
Chemical Engineering Program
Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM)
Prescott Memorial Library
Louisiana Tech Athletics

Professional Societies

American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
The Electrochemical Society (ECS)
American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)
National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)

Student Resources

Elements of Style by Strunk & White (excellent resource for writing)
NIST Data Gateway (lots of physical property data)
Thermophysical Properties of Fluid Systems
onlineethics.org (The Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at Case Western Reserve University)

Local News

Ruston Daily Leader
Monroe News Star
Shreveport Times
Red River Radio (Shreveport NPR)

Other Useful Links

Google
Yahoo
Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus
The Weather Channel
 

Contact Information

Office: 113 IfM

Mailing Address:
Dr. Scott A. Gold
Louisiana Tech University
P.O. Box 10137
Ruston, LA 71272-0043

Phone:  (318) 257-5148
Fax:  (318)257-5104
Email:  sgold@latech.edu