News and Events

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

Prof. Tessonnier visits the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware and gives the CBE seminar.

Caitlyn finished her BS in Chemical Engineering in May and moved to Iowa City to become a Process Engineer with Procter & Gamble.

Rebecca Harmon joins the group as an undergraduate research assistant. David Gardner comes back from his co-op with Bemis. Welcome (back)!

We are now on Twitter!!! Follow us to get updates on recently published papers and more! Click here: @TessonnierGroup

John and Tom have been selected to attend the 17th International Symposium on Relations Between Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis (ISHHC 17) and the UNM PIRE summer school that will be held in Utrecht, Netherlands on July 12-16, 2015. They will present two posters on “Electrocatalytic Hydrogenation of Muconic Acid to Bio-based Monomers” and “Thermal Stability of ZSM-5 Zeolite for the Catalytic Fast Pyrolysis of Cellulose to Aromatics” at ISHHC17.

Prof. Tessonnier and collaborators of the Fritz Haber Institute publish a paper titled “Characterizing Graphitic Carbon with X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy: A Step-by-Step Approach”. The article will appear in ChemCatChem’s special issue on Carbon in the Catalysis Community.

R. Blume, D. Rosenthal, J.-P. Tessonnier, H. Li, A. Knop-Gericke, R. Schlögl, Characterizing Graphitic Carbon with X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy: A Step-by-Step Approach, ChemCatChem, 2015, 7, 2871-2881. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201500344

Prof. Tessonnier delivers an invited talk on the “Rational Design of Hydrothermally Stable Single-site Catalysts for Biomass Conversion Reactions” at the MRS-ICMAT 2015 conference in Singapore. He also chairs the session “Metal Oxide, Metal Carbide and Integrated Catalysts”

Their paper titled “Insights into the Hydrothermal Stability of ZSM-5 under Relevant Biomass Conversion Reaction Conditions” appears in ACS Catalysis. The work was performed in collaboration with Prof. Brent Shanks’ group.

D. W. Gardner, J. Huo, T. C. Hoff, R. L. Johnson, B. H. Shanks, J.-P. Tessonnier, Insights into the Hydrothermal Stability of ZSM-5 under Relevant Biomass Conversion Reaction Conditions, ACS Catal., 2015, 4418-4422. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.5b00888

Jack and John will present on “Selective Base-Catalyzed Isomerization of Glucose to Fructose” and the “Electrocatalytic Conversion of Biologically Produced Muconic Acid to a Bio-based Polymer Precursor”. Tom will present a poster on the “Thermal Stability of ZSM-5 Zeolite under Fast Pyrolysis Conditions”.

Reem Alkhalil (CBiRC-REU), Caleb Raman (CBiRC-YES), Sarah Curry (CBiRC-RET), and Clara Tibbetts (DOE-SULI) join the group for the summer. Welcome (back)!!

Angelica graduates and moves to Joliet to work for Koch Industries.

Jack’s paper on the “Kinetic and Mechanistic Study of Glucose Isomerization Using Homogeneous Organic Brønsted Base Catalysts in Water” appears in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations!

J. M. Carraher, C. N. Fleitman, J.-P. Tessonnier, Kinetic and Mechanistic Study of Glucose Isomerization Using Homogeneous Organic Brønsted Base Catalysts in Water, ACS Catal., 2015, 5, 3162-3173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.5b00316

John has been selected as one of the 2015 Kokes Travel Award recipients to attend the 24th North American Catalysis Society (NACS) meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. At the meeting, John will give a presentation on the “Electrocatalytic Conversion of Biologically Produced Muconic Acid to a Bio-based Polymer Precursor”

New publication in the special issue of Nanotechnology on Atomic Layer Deposition in Energy, Environment, and Sustainability. This article is the result of an international collaboration with Prof. Pinna (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany), Dr. Willinger (Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, Germany), and Prof. Neri (university of Messina, Italy)

C. Marichy, N. Donato, M. Latino, M.-G. Willinger, J.-P. Tessonnier, G. Neri, N. Pinna, Gas Sensing Properties and P-Type Response of Ald Tio2 Coated Carbon Nanotubes, Nanotechnology, 2015, 26, 024004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0957-4484/26/2/024004

Alex and Jack’s paper on the “Selective Base-Catalyzed Isomerization of Glucose to Fructose” appears in ACS Catalysis. Congratulations!

C. Liu, J. M. Carraher, J. L. Swedberg, C. R. Herndon, C. N. Fleitman, J.-P. Tessonnier, Selective Base-Catalyzed Isomerization of Glucose to Fructose, ACS Catal., 2014, 4, 4295-4298. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/cs501197w

Prof. Tessonnier delivers the Osborn Research Club Lecture at Iowa State University. [link]

Erika joins the team. Welcome!!!

Prof. Tessonnier is invited to give a talk at the 8th International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies (ICMAT) that will be held in Singapore from June 28 to July 3, 2015 [link].
Other invited speakers include:
Prof. Hong Yang, UIUC, USA
Prof. Tatsuya Tsukuda, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Prof. Huai Yong Zhu, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Prof. S. C. Edman Tsang, University of Oxford, UK
Prof. Yuriy Roman, MIT, USA
Prof. Sheng Dai, University of Tennessee, USA
Prof. Rongchao Jin, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Prof. Huachun Zeng, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Dr. Yugen Zhang, IBN, A*Star, Singapore
Prof. Franklin Tao, University of Notre Dame, USA
Prof. Kevin Chia-Wen Wu, National Taiwan University
Prof. Yu Han, KAUST, Saudi Arab
Prof. Yusuke Yamada, Osaka University, Japan
Prof. Steven Chuang, University of Akron, USA

Prof. Tessonnier attends the 6th International Symposium on Carbon for Catalysis held at NTNU in Trondheim, Finland. He delivers a talk on “Functionalized Graphene Sheets for the Selective Dispersion of Polyoxometalates in Nonpolar Solvents” and chairs the session “Carbon for New Energy Technologies I”

Prof. Tessonnier visits Prof. Dmitry Murzin’s group at Abo Akademi University (Turku, Finland) and gives a seminar on “Challenges and Opportunities for the Conversion of Biomass to Renewable Chemicals using Carbon-based and Carbon-supported Catalysts”.

Our group publishes the first review article on “Functional Carbons and Carbon Nanohybrids for the Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Renewable Chemicals in the Condensed Phase“. The paper will be part of a special issue on Carbon in Catalysis. Other invited authors include Teresa J. Bandosz (USA), Gabriele Centi (Italy), De Chen (Norway), Morinobu Endo (Japan), Jose L. Figueiredo (Portugal), Gary L. Haller (USA), Cuong Pham-Huu (France), Zinfer R. Ismagilov (Russia), Oleksiy Khavrychenko (Ukraine), Laura Prati (Italy), Ljubisa Radovic (USA and Chili), Daniel E. Resasco (USA), Philippe Serp (France), Magdalena Titirici (UK), Da-Wei Wang (Austrialia)

J. Matthiesen, T. Hoff, C. Liu, C. Pueschel, R. Rao, J.-P. Tessonnier, Functional Carbons and Carbon Nanohybrids for the Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Renewable Chemicals in the Condensed Phase, Chin. J. Catal., 2014, 35, 842-855. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1872-2067(14)60122-4

Clara Tibbetts (SULI), Jason Painter (CBiRC REU), and Sarah Curry (CBiRC RET) join the group for the summer. Welcome!!

Prof. Tessonnier has been selected to co-chair the session “Catalytic Processing of Fossil and Biorenewable Feedstocks: Chemicals I” and chair “Catalytic Processing of Fossil and Biorenewable Feedstocks: Chemicals IV” at the AIChE Annual Meeting 2014.

Jack Carraher joins the group as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Jack brings 5 years of experience in catalysis and reaction kinetics.

Kanchana graduates today! Congratulations!! We are very proud of your achievements.

We are very proud to announce that 7 members of our group have been selected for internships/co-ops:
Angelica Iacobucci: internship with Koch Industries, Summer 2014
Caitlyn Herndon: internship with Cargill, Summer 2014
Jordan Swedberg: internship with LyondellBasell, Summer 2014
Boniface Mkini: co-op with Bemis, Summer-Fall 2014
Rachel Wiltgen: co-op with Cargill, Spring-Summer 2015
Chelsea Fleitman: co-op with Cargill, Spring-Summer 2015
David Gardner: co-op with Bemis, Spring-Summer 2015

Chelsea has been selected to be part of CBiRC’s REU program this summer. Well done!!

Alex receives a $10,000 grant by CBiRC’s Technical Leadership Team for his Student-led Research Project entitled “Hands-on Learning about the Electron Microscopy and Other Characterization Techniques at UNM – A Week Long Mini Symposium”. The mini-symposium will be organized together with Dr. Hien Pham (UNM). It is scheduled to take place at the University of New Mexico in June 2014.

Chelsea Fleitman joins the group as an undergraduate research assistant. Welcome to the team!

Charles Pueschel joins the group as our first DOE SULI student (Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship). Welcome!

Prof. Tessonnier gives a seminar entitled “Challenges and Opportunities for the Conversion of Biomass to Renewable Chemicals”. The talk is part of ISU’s Department of Chemistry Nanoscale Seminar Series organized by Prof. Javier Vela.

John and Tom were selected to receive the Baxter and James R. Katzer graduate fellowships. Congratulations John and Tom!

Radhika Rao and Thomas Hoff join the group as graduate students. Radhika will be working on the hydrogenation of biorenewable chemicals. Tom joins a collaboration with Prof. Robert Brown’s group. He will be working on the zeolite-catalyzed fast pyrolysis of cellulosic and algal biomass.