email: bwilhite<at>engr.uconn.edu

CV: vitae.pdf

• Post-Doctoral Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Notre Dame
• B.S., Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University

Honors and Awards

• NSF CAREER Award (2008)
• DuPont Young Professor (2007)
• Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (2007)
• Arthur J. Schmitt Research Fellow (1997-2001)

University Affiliations

• Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, CMBE Dept.
• Resident Faculty, Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center
• Faculty Fellow, Institute for Material Science
• Faculty Member, Connecticut Biofuels Consortium

Research Interests

• Thermal Integration in Microreactors
• Inorganic Membranes for Hydrogen Extraction
• Structured Membrane Systems for Biofuels Reforming
• Alternative Energy Education, Planning and Policy

Chemical Reaction Engineering for a Sustainable Future

"The boundary between 'midieval' and 'modern' is always advancing; and our age of coal and oil and sooty slums may some day be accounted medieval by an era of cleaner power and more gracious life."

Will Durant (The Age of Faith, 1950).

Growing energy costs, dwindling fossil-fuel resources and impending environmental crisis have driven efforts to re-invent our energy infrastructure as a clean and renewable energy network. And just as Chemical Reaction Engineering was at the center of the development of the 20th-century oil-based energy infrastructure, Chemical Reaction Engineering remains critical to the development of renewable energy and fuels technology. To that end, my research efforts are focused upon reforming of renewable (biological or agricultural) hydrocarbon resources (e.g., ethanol, sugars, butanol, vegetable oils) for efficient energy production.

Our research group combines fundamentals of reaction engineering with advanced materials, microfabrication and nanotechnology to investigate, and ultimately control, interactions between multiple physical and chemical processes within integrated or multifunctional reactors. Our efforts focus upon developing alternative energy systems (e.g. fuel cells, fuel reforming) and green fuels production (e.g. biodiesel production). My position as a member of the CMBE department, the Fuel Cell Center and the Biofuels Consortium allows application of basic research to solving a variety of energy challenges.

One of our research thrusts is the development of scalable, ceramic microchannel networks for "all-in-one" hydrogen production from logistic fuels (e.g. gasoline, diesel) for subsequent use in fuel cell systems. Current balance-of-plant calculations suggest energy densities upwards of 1500 W-hr/kg and 900 W-hr/L are achievable via miniaturization and process intensification (e.g. coupling exothermic reforming with endothermic fuel vaporization) for a range of 10-500W power output. Within this integrated system, several catalytic and/or membrane systems for chemical processing and/or fuels reforming are under investigation. Current projects include (i) composite catalytic-permselective membranes (e.g., CuO/Al2O3:Pd) for hydrogen extraction, (ii) catalytic electroceramics (e.g., CoxBa1-xCeyZr1-yO3-a) for coupling electrochemical hydrogen separation with catalytic hydrogen production, and (iii) composite catalytic membranes for achieving permselective hydrogen production solely by manipulation of reaction and diffusion across the membrane.

News and Announcements

• Daejin Kim and Ayorinde Awonuse's research into developing integrated palladium membrane networks for hydrogen separation to be presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Membranes, August 2008..

• Angela Moreno's research on heat-exchanger reactor modeling to be presented at AIChE National Meeting in Philadelphia, PA, November 2008.

• June 28th, 2007: Biodiesel team (Richard Parnas, PI) demonstrates new, continuous tranesterification reactor operation during 24-hour production of 200 gallons of biodiesel from cooking wastes. A short film detailing this experiment can be found here.

• June 5th, 2007: Undergraduate research opportunities available.

• May 1st, 2007: Prof. Wilhite named one of 33 national recipients of the 2007 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.

• Aug 5th, 2006: Prof. Wilhite's work highlighted in Nature.