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Several major research laboratories serve the department in the fields of advanced materials including the study of diamond films, electrochemical engineering and fuel cell science, bioengineering, colloids and interfacial science, membrane fabrication and characterization, sensor and MEMS device development and testing.
The Chemical Engineering Department is home to one of the major diamond research facilities in the world. The laboratory includes: two microwave ball plasma reactors, one hot-filament reactor, one combustion reaction and one RF plasma reactor for diamond-like materials. Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy, including a novel high intensity radiation source, a ZnSe single-reflection ATR cell and a gas cell are available for use. Additional equipment in this laboratory are a quadrupole mass spectrometer for gas analysis, a Digital Instruments Nanoscope III atomic force microscope, and a HP semiconductor parameter analyzer with Mitutoyo microscope for rapid resistivity measurements.
The Chemical Engineering Department has a leadership position in the university-wide Case Applied Power Institute (CAPI) and the Ernest B. Yeager Center for Electrochemical Sciences. Electrochemical laboratories housed within the Department contain a large assortment of general-purpose electrochemical instrumentation and many specialized items, including high-speed potentiostats, ac impedance measurement systems, data acquisition systems for fast-scan voltametric techniques, a laser-based micropipette puller and microelectrode beveller, a quartz crystal microbalance, numerous fuel cell test stations, room temperature and cryogenic glove box facilities, a Nikon metallurgical microscope, a custom-built multipurpose differential electrochemical mass spectrometer, FTIR spectrometers, and instruments for casting polymeric membranes and then measuring their electrochemical and transport properties.
Instrumentation available to the department via the Macromolecular Science Department and The Polymer Micro-Devices Laboratory include five Langmuir troughs for the characterization of monolayers, Brewster angle microscopy, atomic force microscopy, electron diffraction, x-ray diffraction, ellipsometric spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, thermal analysis equipment (DSC/TGA/TMA), and Raman spectroscopy.
The Center for Micro and Nano Processing offers services in thin film processing, metal deposition, oxidation/diffusion, wire bonding, thick film processing, substrate dicing, bulk and surface micromachining, integrated circuit fabrication (on 4-inch wafers). There is clean room space available for wafer processing (Class 100 space), photolithography, dry and wet etching, and wafer bonding.
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