Our summer Undergraduate Research Program provides selected students with unique research training and professional development through an intensive ten-week summer program in the Department of Chemistry. In line with the strategic goals of the university, research opportunities will fall within two broad focus areas: Advanced Materials and Chemical Biology.

This proposal seeks to leverage the properties of poly(amine)-cellulose nanocrystals to remove metal and inorganic contaminants from rendered fat in order to facilitate the use of rendered animal fat for renewable biodiesel applications. The development of an inexpensive and convenient method for the removal of metal and inorganic contaminants from rendered fat will be beneficial to the industry because it will serve to improve the quality of rendered fat feedstocks for use in renewable biodiesel refining. The effective removal of trace metal and inorganic contaminants from rendered fat will prevent catalyst poisoning during the refining process and improve the stability

This proposal sought to address both of these significant problems by investigating the development of biodegradable, environmentally-benign materials that possess inherent microbicidal properties for applications in the poultry industry and in associated rendering operations.  To achieve this goal we set out to develop a series of strategically functionalized cellulose nano and/or microcrystals and to investigate their microbicidal properties against a panel of Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria in culture-based experiments. These new materials would in theory leverage existing strategies to impart microbicidal properties to polymeric materials