Page 52 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Engineering
Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Nanoparticle polymer (PEG-PCL) was used and modified using different peptide ligands – COG, TGN, RXR. The
nanoparticles were modified to enable crossing of BBB and specifically target cerebellum. The nanoparticles were
prepared using double emulsion method, then the particle size and potential were characterized. The cellular uptake of
PC12 cells was determined using flow cytometry, and the permeability of bEnd.3 cells was determined using
transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) measurement. The particle sizes vary depending on the ligands attached.
Ligand-modified nanoparticles show positive surface charges, indicating that the ligands are exposed on the surface.
Transendothelial electrical resistance indicates that tight junction was not formed by bEnd.3 cells.

Towards Zero-waste Pharmaceutical Processes: Mapping Complex Process Behavior of a Novel Membrane-assisted
Crystallization Process

Supervisor: LAKERVELD Richard / CBE
Student: MADEJ Dominik / CENG Course: UROP2100, Fall
UROP3100, Spring

Solvent selection and process optimization are key challenges in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Simultaneous
optimization of solvent type and process conditions using PC-SAFT with mixed-integer nonlinear programming method
was conducted for continuous antisolvent crystallization of paracetamol with and without solvent recycling. Moreover,
the performance of MINLP and brute force optimization methods were compared. In all cases (with and without solvent
recycling, MINLP vs. NLP brute force method), selection of the optimal solvent pair was consistent. A system with
solvent recycling could produce a higher yield (0.230) than a system without recycling. For all cases investigated, CPU
time needed for evaluation of MINLP problems was 3 orders of magnitude shorter than the CPU time of a combination
of NLP problems and brute evaluation. The developed approach can support process design for pharmaceutical industry
to shorten time-to-market and minimize waste generation from solvents.

Biofuels and Derived Products from Spent Coffee and Tea Ground

Supervisor: LAM Leung Yuk Frank / CBE Co Supervisor: HU Xijun / CBE
Student: HUI Yiting / EVMT Course: UROP1100, Spring

The advantages of generating biofuels from biomass have been self-explanatory for decades and there is continuous
research on maximizing biofuel generation potential by altering raw materials and pretreatment parameters. With the
discovery of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, the astonishing
properties of graphene and its compounds (such as graphene oxide as photocatalyst) have come into light. Since there is
a huge amount of spent tea waste in China, it is meaningful to explore the graphene generation potential of different
types of spent tea and figure out the optimal experimental conditions. Factors like intrinsic properties, various
pretreatment parameters, and particle size of could be vital to final outcome, and should be deeply investigated.

Supervisor: LAM Leung Yuk Frank / CBE Co Supervisor: HU Xijun / CBE
Student: YEUNG Chun Chung / ENVS Course: UROP1100, Spring

Nowadays, the popular coffee shop culture has generated a huge amount of by-products i.e. spent coffee grounds. In
other to handle this waste stream in a sustainable manner, people have been developing different ways to valorize it.
One sustainable valorization route would in theory consist of different processes integrated together to separate and
utilize the different portion of spent coffee ground because it has a wide spectrum of chemical composition. For
instance, coffee grounds can be extracted for lipids and be turned into biodiesel and the subsequent residue can be used
to produce biochar from pyrolysis. In the present study, we focus on the latter part of such valorization chain i.e. the

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