News and Events

John wins ISU’s Graduate College Research Excellence Award and gives a presentation in the department. Congrats!

John successfully defends his thesis on the electrochemical hydrogenation of muconic acid. Congratulations!

The Tessonnier group presented their research at the Hoover STEM Academy in Des Moines, Iowa and motivated the students for pursuing research in STEM fields.

The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) at ISU offered Radhika their Professional Advancement Grant (PAG) for presenting her research at the 253rd meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in San Francisco

Radhika has been selected as one the 2017 Kokes Award recipients to attend the 25th North American Catalysis Society (NACS) meeting to be held in Denver, CO. She will be presenting her research on the “Carbon Support-Mediated Control of Selectivity for the Palladium-Catalyzed Hydrogenation of Multifunctional Chemicals”.

The Office of the Vice President for Research at ISU awarded a $10,000 Brown Graduate Fellowship to Radhika. This fellowship is offered by the Valentine Hammes Family and Leopold Hammes Brown Family Trust to students for their academic excellence and the contribution of their research to the departmental research program and ISU. Radhika was one of the first 15 students at ISU to receive this fellowship. Congratulations!!

The ACS Catalysis Division (CATL) conferred their travel award to Radhika for attending the 253rd ACS conference held in San Francisco in April 2017. She is one of the 20 students to receive this award. Congratulations!!

Prof. Tessonnier gives the CBE department seminar at Iowa State University.

Chelsea graduates and joins P&G.

Prof. Tessonnier visits the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma and gives the department seminar.

Elspeth is one of the 14 students nationwide who were awarded a NASA fellowship!!

In collaboration with Prof. Robert Brown’s research group, Tom and David published an article titled “Elucidating the Effect of Desilication on Aluminum-Rich ZSM-5 Zeolite and its Consequences on Biomass Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis” in Applied Catalysis A: General.

T.C. Hoff, D. W. Gardner, R. Thilakaratne, J. Proano-Aviles, R. C. Brown, J.-P. Tessonnier, Elucidating the Effect of Desilication on Aluminum-Rich Zsm-5 Zeolite and Its Consequences on Biomass Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis, Appl. Catal. A, 2017, 529, 68-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apcata.2016.10.009

Jack and John’s paper on the solubility of cis,cis-muconic acid in polar solvents is published in Journal of Molecular Liquids.

J.E. M. Carraher, J. E. Matthiesen, J.-P. Tessonnier, Comments on “Thermodynamics of cis,cis-Muconic Acid Solubility in Various Polar Solvents at Low Temperature Range”, J. Mol. Liq., 2016, 224, 420-422. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2016.09.125

John’s paper titled “Electrochemical Conversion of Biologically Produced Muconic Acid: Key Considerations for Scale-Up and Corresponding Technoeconomic Analysis” is published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. This work was done in collaboration with Prof. Zengyi Shao, Prof. Raj Raman, and Prof. George Kraus.

J. E. Matthiesen, M. Suástegui, Y. Wu, M. Viswanathan, Y. Qu, M. Cao, N. Rodriguez-Quiroz, A. Okerlund, G. Kraus, D. R. Raman, Z. Shao, J.-P. Tessonnier, Electrochemical Conversion of Biologically Produced Muconic Acid: Key Considerations for Scale-up and Corresponding Technoeconomic Analysis, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2016, 4, 7098-7109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b01981

Their work on the thermal (in)stability of ZSM-5 and its consequences on catalytic fast pyrolysis is published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

T. C. Hoff, R. Thilakaratne, D. W. Gardner, R. C. Brown, J.-P. Tessonnier, Thermal Stability of Aluminum-Rich Zsm-5 Zeolites and Consequences on Aromatization Reactions, J. Phys. Chem. C, 2016, 120, 20103-20113. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b04671

Michael Holmes and Ryan Linnemann join the group as undergraduate researech assistants. Ryan will be co-mentored by Prof. Eric Cochran.

Prof. Tessonnier gives 4 talks on his group’s research at the ACS Fall Meeting in Philadelphia.

Prof. Tessonnier gave a keynote presentation on “Bottom-Up Design of Metal-Free Carbocatalysts for the Conversion of Biomass Under Hydrothermal Conditions” at the Carbon 2016 conference held at PennState.

Ploi Lerner and Sultan Alsayegh join the group as undergraduate research assistants. Welcome!

Jeremy Morrow joins the group through the CBiRC RET (Research Experience for High School Teachers) program. He will spend 6 weeks in the lab this summer and conduct research on catalysts for hydrogenation reactions. Welcome Jeremy!!

John gived a talk on “Integrating metabolic engineering and electrocatalysis for the production of polyamides from sugar” and presents a poster on the “Electrochemical conversion of cis,trans-muconic acid to trans,trans-muconic acid and trans-3-hexenedioic acid for bio-based polymer production”.

Prof. Tessonnier visits the department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at the University of Iowa and gives the department seminar.

Jordan joins REG. David moves to Berkeley to pursue a PhD.

Their paper titled “Tailoring ZSM-5 Zeolites for the Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass to Aromatic Hydrocarbons” is published in ChemSusChem. The work was performed in collaboration with Prof. Robert Brown’s group.

T. C. Hoff, D. W. Gardner, R. Thilakaratne, K. Wang, T. W. Hansen, R. C. Brown, J.-P. Tessonnier, Tailoring ZSM-5 Zeolites for the Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass to Aromatic Hydrocarbons, ChemSusChem, 2016, 9, 1473-1482. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201600186

John’s paper titled “Electrochemical Conversion of Muconic Acid to Biobased Diacid Monomers” is published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

J. E. Matthiesen, J. M. Carraher, M. Vasiliu, D. A. Dixon, J.-P. Tessonnier, Electrochemical Conversion of Muconic Acid to Biobased Diacid Monomers, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2016, 4, 3575-3585. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b00679

Radhika wins the Teaching Excellence award conferred by the Graduate College at ISU for her outstanding achievement in teaching.

Radhika presented her research on the “Carbon Support Effects on the Selectivity of Pd/C Catalysts for the Liquid-Phase Hydrogenation of Multifunctional Chemicals” at the 128th Iowa Academy of Science conference in Des Moines.

David presented two talks titled “Structure-Activity Correlations for the Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass” and “Considerations for Aluminum-Rich ZSM-5 in Moderate to High Temperature Processing” at the 128^th Annual Meeting of the Iowa Academy of Science in Des Moines.

John receives a $9,100 grant from CBiRC’s Technical Leadership Team for a collaborative Student-led Research Project with Miguel Suastegui (Shao group, ISU).

Prof. Tessonnier and Radhika gave two oral presentations at the ACS National Meeting held in San Diego this year: “Hydrothermal Stability of Zeolites Under Relevant Biomass Conversion Reaction Conditions “ and “Carbon support effects on liquid-phase hydrogenation reactions”, respectively.

The ACS Catalysis Division (CATL) conferred their travel award to Radhika for attending the 251st ACS conference held in San Diego in April 2017. Congratulations!!

The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) at ISU offered Radhika their Professional Advancement Grant (PAG) for presenting her research at the 251st American Chemical Society conference in San Diego.

John’s paper titled “Combining Metabolic Engineering and Electrocatalysis: Application to the Production of Polyamides from Sugar” is published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and is featured on the journal’s front cover!!! The work is the result of a collaboration with Prof. Zengyi Shao and Prof. Eric Cochran’s groups at ISU.

M. Suastegui, J. E. Matthiesen, J. M. Carraher, N. Hernandez, N. Rodriguez Quiroz, A. Okerlund, E. W. Cochran, Z. Shao, J.-P. Tessonnier, Combining Metabolic Engineering and Electrocatalysis: Application to the Production of Polyamides from Sugar, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2016, 55, 2368-2373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201509653

M. Suastegui, J. E. Matthiesen, J. M. Carraher, N. Hernandez, N. Rodriguez Quiroz, A. Okerlund, E. W. Cochran, Z. Shao, J.-P. Tessonnier, Cover Picture: Combining Metabolic Engineering and Electrocatalysis: Application to the Production of Polyamides from Sugar (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 7/2016), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2016, 55, 2275-2275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201600369

Prof. Tessonnier and collaborators at ISU publish a paper in Green Chemistry titled “Conversion of Methoxy and Hydroxyl Functionalities of Phenolic Monomers over Zeolites”.

R. Thilakaratne, J.-P. Tessonnier, R. C. Brown, Conversion of Methoxy and Hydroxyl Functionalities of Phenolic Monomers over Zeolites, Green Chem., 2016, 18, 2231-2239. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C5GC02548F

Sanaz Abdolmohammadi joins the group as a graduate student. Sani will be working on the electrochemical conversion of biobased intermediates to advanced monomers and their polymerization. She will be co-advised by Prof. Eric Cochran.

The Tessonnier group presented research videos developed on our work to students at the Hoover high school in Des Moines, IA.

The Tessonnier research group had two talks in Salt Lake City! Prof. Tessonnier and David presented “Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Cellulose to Aromatics with Nanocrystalline ZSM-5: Role of Extra-Framework Aluminum” and “Hydrothermal Stability of ZSM-5 in Relevant Biomass Conversion Conditions”, respectively. Well done!

Their paper titled “Kinetics, Reaction Orders, Rate Laws, and Their Relation to Mechanisms: A Hands-On Introduction for High School Students Using Portable Spectrophotometry” appears in J. Chem. Educ.

J. M. Carraher, S. M. Curry, J.-P. Tessonnier, Kinetics, Reaction Orders, Rate Laws, and Their Relation to Mechanisms: A Hands-on Introduction for High School Students Using Portable Spectrophotometry, J. Chem. Educ., 2016, 93, 172-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00640