Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Date: 15.7.13
Time: 8:30
Location: Olin Hall, Cornell School of Engineering, Cornell University

This morning we attended our first lecture, given by Professor Rozana Zia regarding chemical and biomolecular engineering.  Biomolecular engineering deals with cell and protein engineering, virus fusion kinetics, nanotechnology, and has a strong focus on fluid dynamics.  Bioengineers do both microscopic research, similar to that of a biologist or microbiologist, as well as macroscopic work such as how to move shampoo through a three mile pipe at Johnson and Johnson.

Some of the graduate students working in the Zia Lab presented the work they were doing.  This work

Atomic layer deposition

included synthetic engineering, where they engineer cells to display or hide certain characteristics in order to manipulate and control them, flexible technology, where one student is working to find out how to make flexible display screens using atomic layer deposition, RNA engineering, cell networks (research on how cells communicate), and organic electronics, which can be largely used for mass data collection.  Each of these projects fall under chemical engineering, as they are concerned largely with the way in which the materials react with one another, as opposed to the design or uses of their work.

Here are our friends in engineering, the Mythbusters talking about a complex fluid

We then learned about simple versus complex fluids.  A simple fluid will deform when you place a stress on it.  These are the liquids we know.  A complex fluid, however, will not react in the way which you would expect.  A complex fluid, such as ooblech, does not have the same proportionality, and therefore engineers like to study its properties.

Liquid nitrogen ice cream

Our final presentation was from a student who is majoring in Ice Cream Science.  Yes, that is a major.  I almost jumped for joy.  His work is in creating the best tasting, smoothest ice cream ever.  So far he has discovered that when you make ice cream, generally water is used.  This creates large ice crystals that are not comfortable to eat as well as not being able to hold flavor particularly well.  So, he decided to freeze the cream a different way.  Using liquid nitrogen.  The incredibly low temperature of liquid nitrogen means that the crystals formed are much smaller, making the ice cream smoother and allowing it to hold flavor better.  So, of course, we had to test it out.  Making the ice cream with liquid nitrogen, which you actually just pour right into the cream, does in fact create a superior product that this student hopes to bring into the mass market.