Jeffrey Seay, Ph.D., P.E.

UKATS Team at the NSDE in Washington, DC.

The UKATS Research Team competed in the 9th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo, as part of the US EPA’s People, prosperity and the Planet Design Competition, held April 18-19, 2013 in Washington, DC.  The UKATS students presented the results of their Phase I P3 project – developing a low-cost, integrated biodiesel and biochar processor for rural sub-Saharan Africa.  This project was completed in collaboration with the African Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (ACREST) The team was joined by four local high school students who have been working with the team on this year’s project.

Chemical Engineering student and UKATS Research Team member Mitchell Peeler was awarded an Honorable Mention in the poster competition at the AIChE Southern Regional Student Conference held at the University of Kentucky campus in Lexington.  Mitchell’s poster titled “An Integrated Process for Sustainable Biofuel production in Sub-Saharan Africa through Appropriate Technology”, focused on Mitchell’s field research work in Bangang Village, Cameroon in May of 2012.  Congratulations Mitchell!

Christina Willett and Dr. Seay at MESCON.

Junior CME student Christina Willett was awarded a 1^st Place Paper Award at the Math, Engineering and Science Conference (MESCON) held at the University of Evansville on March 22, 2013.  Her paper citation is:

Willett, Christina and Jeffrey Seay (2013): “Separation of Methanol from Wood Vinegar”, Proceeding of the 2013 Math Engineering and Science Conference, CD-Volume, Evansville, Indiana.

Christina is a member of the UKATS research team and her research work is focused on the recovery of methanol from the production of charcoal for use as a reagent in the low-cost production of biodiesel in sub-Saharan Africa.  Congratulations to Christina for her hard work!

Three undergraduate research students advised by Dr. Seay, Max Croft, William Croft and Landon Mott, presented their work at the 2012 AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA.  Sophomore Max Croft presented his poster titled “A Project Developing a Process for Sustainable Low Cost Biofuel and Biochar for Rural West Africa in Sustainability.  Sophomore William Croft won 1st place in Environmental Science and Engineering II for his poster titled ”A Renewable Process for Producing Low-Cost Biofuel and Biochar for Rural West Africa”.  Senior Landon Mott won 3rd place in Education for his poster titled ”Inductive Methods of Teaching Batch Distillation Through Simulation”.  Landon is co-advised by Dr. David Silverstein.

Dr. Seay, recently lead seven UK Paducah chemical and mechanical engineering research students in a design project to develop low-cost, environmentally friendly technologies to produce biodiesel for rural villagers in Cameroon, Africa. Dr. Seay and the students worked with the African Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (ACREST) to design the process using resources and materials readily available in Cameroon. The 10-day trip to Bangang, Cameroon to work with the local villagers in implementing and refining the design was the culmination of this year-long project.

UK Team with ACREST technician Momanyi

Zach Watson, Chris Sterrie, Max Croft, Bradley Butler, Mitchell Peeler, Wiliam Croft and Christina Willett at MESCON

The Undergraduate Research Group presented their research work on the Cameroon Biodiesel Project at the Math, Engineering, and Science Conference (MESCON) at the University of Evansville on March 23, 2012.

Our research group has had 2 papers accepted for the 22nd European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering (ESCAPE 22) to be held in London, UK in June of 2012.  The two papers are as follows:

1. Amundson, J., W. Faulkner, S. Sukumara, J. Seay, F. Badurdeen, (2012). “A Bayesian Network Based Approach for Risk Modeling to Aid in Development of Sustainable Biomass Supply Chains.”
2. Sukumara, S., Amundson, J., W. Faulkner, F. Badurdeen, J. Seay (2012). “Multidisciplinary Apporach in Developing Region Specific Optimization Tool for Integrated Biorefining.”

PhD Student, Sumesh Sukumara (right) wins research award

PhD student Sumesh Sukumara has been awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award at the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment 2^nd Annual Research Showcase in Lexington, Kentucky for his contribution titled “Multidisciplinary Approach in Developing a Region Specific Optimization Model for Sustainable Biorefining”.