Game-changing filters being tested
Joseph
Meadows
Assistant
Professor
Research
Focus:
Combustion;
Heat transfer;
Advanced laser
diagnostics;
Thermoacous-
tics; Pressure
gain combus-
tion
The U.S. Dept of Energy has a goal of carbon
filtration using solid sorbents by 2030. Vir-
ginia Tech’s Advanced Power and Propulsion
Laboratory is home to a proof-of-concept
experiment that could help launch a billion-
dollar business that will have enormous impli-
cations on how pollutants are collected and
recycled, and thus impact the long-term goal.
Partnering with MOVA Technologies based in
Pulaski, Virginia, Joseph Meadows, an assis-
tant professor of mechanical engineering in
the College of Engineering, will analyze the
company’s panel-bed filters at his test cell
in the lab. With Meadows, Stephen Martin, an associate professor of chemical engineering, will
serve as the subject-matter-expert in the field of solid sorbents.
“Working with MOVA, we will measure the efficacy of the company’s panel-bed filters at absorb-
ing various pollutants, saturation time for various conditions and contaminants, and optimize the
system’s operational parameters,” said Meadows. “In the future, we will investigate these param-
eters in realistic temperature and pressure environments.”
Traditional scrubbers remove pollutants en masse leaving tons of collected waste that requires
expensive specialty treatment or storage. MOVA’s panel-bed filters are designed to selectively
remove individual contaminants, which can then be easily sold on as products in their own right –
lowering the amount of pollutants that are put into storage by recycling waste into products.
Examples of applications that use recycled waste include: fly ash used in cement, sulfur dioxide
used in preservatives and wastewater treatment, nitric oxide used by the fertilizer and medical
industries, and carbon dioxide sold as carbon emission credits.
Mechanical Engineers develop process
to 3D print
piezoelectric
materials
Piezoelectric materials that inhabit
everything from cell phones to
greeting cards may be getting an
upgrade thanks to work discussed
in the journal Nature Materials.
Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’
Zheng
Assistant
Professor
Research
Focus:
Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’ Zheng, assistant
Hierarchical
professor of mechanical engineer-
multifunctional
ing and his team have developed
materials and
methods to 3D print piezoelectric
materials that can be custom-designed to convert movement, impact and stress from any direc- systems; Me-
chanics of ma-
tions to electrical energy.
Piezoelectric materials come in only a few defined shapes and are made of brittle crystal and ce- terials; Micro
ramic – requiring a clean room to manufacture. Zheng’s team developed a technique to 3D print and nanotech-
these materials so they are not restricted by shape or size. The material can also be activated
nology; Bio-
– providing the next generation of intelligent infrastructures and smart materials for tactile sens- medical micro-
ing, impact and vibration monitoring, energy harvesting, and other applications.
devices
The model they developed allows them to manipulate and design arbitrary piezoelectric con-
stants, resulting in the material generating electric charge movement in response to incom-
ing forces and vibrations from any direction. Unlike conventional piezoelectrics where electric
charge movements are prescribed by the intrinsic crystals, the new method allows users to pre-
scribe and program voltage responses to be magnified, reversed or suppressed in any direction.
10 Revised and Corrected, Nov. 2019