Composite binders are important materials used in furniture, flooring and other consumer products, but they can pose health hazards. Dr. James Caruthers, the Gerald and Sarah Skidmore Professor of Chemical Engineering, is leading research to develop a lower-cost, sustainable and greener method for producing composite boards - a method that is already seeing growing support from major industry players.

Drones and other aircraft effectively spray pesticides over miles of crops, but they can pollute the environment if carried off-target. One problem is that tiny droplets are hard for aerial crop sprayers, inkjet printers and other machines to control. Purdue University engineers are the first to come up with the math formula that was missing to measure a key property of these droplets. Dr. Osman Basaran, the Burton and Kathryn Gedge Professor of Chemical Engineering, and his students have figured out a way to calculate surface viscosity by looking at how a droplet stretches. A picture taken of the stretched droplet as it starts to break gives the values to put into a simple math formula that provides the surface viscosity measurement.

The International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) recognizes accomplished leaders for their contributions to the field at an international level. Four Purdue Chemical Engineering alumni, Chris Bowman (BSChE '88; PhD '91), Lisa Brannon-Peppas (MSChE '86; PhD '88), Richard Korsmeyer (MSChE '80; PhD '83), and Shankar Subramaniam (PhD '02) were recently elected into the 2020 Class of Fellows with 24 other inductees. Inductees into the Academy are nominated by other fellows.

Dr. Xiaoping Bao, Assistant Professor in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, has been selected to receive the 2020 Showalter Trust Research Award for his research in human pluripotent stem cells, or hPSCs, for cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Ray Mentzer, Professor of Engineering Practice and Executive Director of the Purdue Process Safety and Assurance Center in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, is leading a team of Purdue researchers examining the wide spectrum of industries which have experienced severe or catastrophic process safety incidents. Industries examined include agriculture, food, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, in addition to oil, gas and chemicals, et al. The researchers reviewed 81 significant incidents in 14 industries to identify the contributing factors, to measure the most common per each of the industries, and to determine the most prevalent across all industries examined. Their results were recently published in Process Safety Progress, a publication of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.