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the McKetta Department of
Chemical Engineering
#5
Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Program
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Graduate Chemical Engineering Program
Spotlights
Explore more at the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering
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Professor Joan Brennecke Honored Among Top Inventors
Joan Brennecke, professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, has been selected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a prestigious distinction awarded to a select group of 164 academic innovators around the world for 2021.
New Way to Pull Lithium from Water Could Increase Supply, Efficiency
Anyone using a cellphone, laptop or electric vehicle depends on lithium. The element is in tremendous demand. And although the supply of lithium around the world is plentiful, getting access to it and extracting it remains a challenging and inefficient process.
An interdisciplinary team of engineers and scientists is developing a way to extract lithium from contaminated water. New research, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, could simplify the process of extracting lithium from aqueous brines, potentially create a much larger supply and reduce costs of the element for batteries to power electric vehicles, electronics and a wide range of other devices.
Like Father, Like Daughter: Texas ChE Alumni Share Unique Legacy
Corrinne and her father, Craig, now share a unique experience that few father-daughter duos can tout: they are both graduates of the Cockrell School’s McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering.
Alum Daniel Zavala, shares his experience as an international scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.
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A pioneer of advanced healthcare materials, Professor Nicholas Peppas continues to innovate in the fields of healthcare materials and drug delivery.
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Biotech senior research scientist and Texas ChE alum, Dr. Julie Fogarty, talks with Ph.D. student Dalton Towers.
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Dr. Tae Han Kim, Founding CEO and Chairman of Samsung Biologics and Texas ChE alum, talks with Ph.D. student Aaliyah Shodeinde.
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Research Areas
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Advanced Materials, Polymers & Nanotechnology
Design and synthesis of inorganic and polymeric materials at the molecular level to achieve desirable properties for a wide range of applications
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Biotechnology
Applying chemical engineering principles for the development of biochemical processes and biomedical applications
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Energy
The development of photovoltaics, catalysts for fuels from sunlight, and electrical energy generation and storage systems engineering for energy efficiency
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Environmental Engineering
Programs to understand the fundamental science and engineering of air and water pollution, and to develop data for informed policy decisions. Process development for CO2 capture and sequestration
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Modeling & Simulation
The development and application of multiscale models and high performance computational simulations spanning atomic to continuum time and length scales
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Process Engineering
Design, modeling, optimization, and control of petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and microelectronic processes
ChE Graduate Program Q & A with Professor Korgel
Learn more about the chemical engineering Ph.D. program with graduate recruitment advisor, Professor Korgel, from his Texas ChE Instagram Live Q & A.
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News

Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste
An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days.
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Southwest Research Institute and UT Austin Create New Opportunity for Collaborative Energy Research
“Partnerships like this that bring together researchers and leaders from across the energy field help us find and advance the highest impact solutions to our energy future,” said Brian Korgel, director of UT’s Energy Institute and professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering.
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Versatile ‘Nanocrystal Gel’ Could Enable Advances in Energy, Defense and Telecommunications
New applications in energy, defense and telecommunications could receive a boost after a team at The University of Texas at Austin created a new type of “nanocrystal gel” — a gel composed of tiny nanocrystals each 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair that are linked together into an organized network.
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Texas Chemical Engineers License Carbon Capture Technology to Honeywell
Honeywell plans to commercialize carbon capture technology created by researchers from the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin that holds the promise of significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions from many industrial sources.
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