October 2024:

• Dr. Xiao will chair the session of "Catalysis on Low Dimensional Materials" at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, Time: 3:30 PM PT - 6:00 PM PT, Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 28B, Thursday, October 31, 2024. Check more info here.

• Dr. Xiao will present an oral talk of "Catalytically Active Edge Sites of Mxene-Confined Pt Nanolayers for Conversion of Short Alkanes" at the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting, Time: 5:18 PM PT - 5:36 PM PT, Location: San Diego Convention Center, Room 28B, Thursday, October 31, 2024. Check more info here.

September 2024:

• In collaboration with Dr. Cao from Zhejiang University, our paper entitled "One-pot Synthesis of 5-Norbornene-2,3-Dicarboxylic Anhydride with High Exo/Endo Ratio in a Microreactor under High Temperature and Appropriate Pressure" is published in Chemical Engineering Journal. Check it HERE.

•Welcome four undergraduate students join the group: Gregory Allen, Kaleigh Louque, Suraj Dahal, and Sudip Regmi. They are all from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Louisiana Tech University.

•Welcome Jiaping Weng join the group as a PhD student! Jiaping receives B.S. in Environment Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China.

•Welcome Kritik Saxena join the group as a PhD student! Kritik is co-advised by Prof. Mainardi. Kritik receives B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Medicaps Institute of Technology and Management, Indore, India, and M.S. in Manufacturing Technology, National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India.

August 2024:

•Congratulations to Tobias Misicko, the 1st PhD student in the group, for passing his qualifier exams and becoming a PhD candidate.

July 2024:

•More Great News - The Xiao Group, for the second time, received the LAMDA 1B Collaborative Partnership Award from Louisiana Materials Design Alliance (LAMDA) supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. OIA-1946231 and the Louisiana Board of Regents. This is a $40K one-year project to investigate catalyst stability using both DFT (density functional theory) and MD (Molecular Dynamics) methods.

•Welcome Jacob Robinson to join the group as an undergraduate research assistant.

June 2024:

•Great News - The Xiao Group, for the second time, received the Research Enhancement Award (REA) from Louisiana Space Grant Consortium (LaSPACE, NASA EPSCoR Program). This is a $70K one-year project to conduct catalytic oligomerization of olefins to liquid rocket propellant fuels.

•Great News - The Xiao Group received a second grant this year from the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is funded by the Catalysis program from the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET). This is a $336K three-year project to convert ethane to ethylene and hydrogen. The project conneccts the former NSF ERI project (link), in which methane is converted to ethane and carbon-free hydrogen. Check more info here.

May 2024:

• Our group is highlighted in the College's press release - "Xiao wins prestigious NSF grant to convert shale gas into clean energy". Check more info here. Check the NSF award here.

• Congratulations to Piper Smith on receiving a $5,000 scholarship from the ACS (American Chemistry Society) SEED project.

• Our LTRC TIRE grant (Louisiana Transportation Research Center - Transportation Innovation for Research Exploration grant) and the research group are highlighted in Louisiana Tech University's press release as "Xiao awarded funding for energy sustainability research through TIRE grant". Check more info here.

•Great News - The Xiao Group has received the Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is funded by the Catalysis program from the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET). This is a $200K two-year project to convert methane, the primary component of Louisiana's shale gas, to ethane and carbon-free hydrogen. Ethane can be used to produce ethylene, a precursor of polyethylene plastics. Hydrogen is a clean fuel, and its burning does not produce CO₂ thus easing global warming. In addition, we will build a steady-state isotopic transient kinetic analysis - operando transmission Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (SSITKA-FTIR) in a single flow reactor to investigate catalytic mechanisms under working conditions. Check more info here.

April 2024:

• Congratulations to Tobias Misicko on receiving the College's graduate research award!

• Congratulations to Caroline Cresap, an undergraduate researcher in the group, on receiving a $5,000 SURE (Supervised Undergraduate Research Experience) grant from NSF EPSCOR to conduct a Machine Learning investigation of catalyst design.

March 2024:

• The Xiao Group receives Transportation Innovation for Research Exploration (TIRE) grant sponsored by Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC) for a project to convert methane to ethanol fuel via photo-thermo catalysis.

• Welcome three graduate students to the Xiao Research Group: Joaquin Herrero is a PhD student, who obtained his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A. Mantasha Noyela is a PhD student, who obtained her B.S. in Computer Science from Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Thapaswi Movva is a Master's student, who obtained her B.S. in Computer Science from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India.

• Dr. Xiao is organizing the "Catalysis on Low Dimensional Materials" session at the 2024 AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. We seek submissions on single-atom catalysis, and 2D catalysis such as MXene, MOF, COF, etc. Please check it here.

• The Xiao Group will present a poster on the catalytic conversion of short alkanes at the ACS Spring 2024 Conference, Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Hall C - Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana.

February 2024:

• The Xiao Group received a COES RED Travel Grant.

January 2024:

• The Xiao Group received subsistence funds from the Louisiana Board of Regents to support a Ph.D. student to visit Oak Ridge National Laboratory for eight weeks.

• In collaboration with Dr. Cao from Zhejiang University, our paper entitled "A Kinetic Model of the Cycloaddition Reactions Between Cyclopentadiene and 1, 3‐Butadiene for Synthesis of 5-vinyl-2-norbornene" is published in The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering. Check it HERE.

December 2023:

• Our group has two immediate openings for Ph.D. students. A bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering or close fields is required. Please send your CV and transcripts to yxiao@latech.edu if you are interested.

• We welcome Sean Clay joining the group as an Undergraduate Researcher!

• The Xiao Group has a GC-MS instrument (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry), which can separate (GC) and detect (MS) unknown species in a mixture.

November 2023:

Dr. Xiao will chair the session of "Catalysis on Low Dimensional Materials" at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting on Sunday, November 5, 2023, 3:30 PM - 6:00 PM, Plaza International Ballroom J (Convention Level, Hyatt Regency Orlando) in Orlando, FL. Check the Agenda .

October 2023:

Dr. Xiao gave a talk at the Energy Transition Research Symposium on 10/6/2023 at LSU Energy, Coast & Environment Bldg. (93 S. Quad Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70803), entitled: "Environmentally Sustainable Carbon-Free Hydrogen Generation by Catalytic Dehydrogenation of Short Alkanes". Check the Agenda .

September 2023:

We welcome Caroline Cresap to join the group as an undergraduate research assistant!

We welcome Mst. Nusrat Yasmin to join the group as a PhD graduate research assistant!

We welcome Piper Smith to join the group as an undergraduate research assistant!

Our paper is accepted by LSU's Energy Transition Research Symposium. Dr. Xiao will give a presentation of hydrogen generation on 10/6/2023 at LSU En\ ergy, Coast & Environment Bldg. (93 S. Quad Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70803). Check more info here.

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