News

January 2025

Congrats to Dr Saudagar Dongare for his promotion to Research Associate!

Congrats to Dr Vaishali Khokhar for being selected as an Early Career Editorial Board Member of Journal of Chemical Engineering Data  - an ACS journal. 

Several new members joined the group. Undergraduates: Colin Haselfeld and Mica Murdoch; PhD student: Zhongyu Xie; High school students: Emme Thomas and Nathan Liu!

Dr Gurkan received the PECASE award from The White House!

October 2024

Congrats to Aidan Klemm for a succesful PhD defense! He graduated with the distinction of Outstanding Researcher Award from the department and is off to Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher. 

Several group members presented at ECS Hawaii Meeting! 

May 2024

A podcast with Dr Gurkan by NSF is now available through NSF Discovery Files. "Repurposing Carbon Dioxide" episode is now available through  Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Amazon. 

We welcome 4 undergraduate researchers this summer: Willem, Euphemia, Isabella, and Amelia; all received SOURCE funding from CWRU to do research on projects related to carbon capture, electrolysis, and metal ion separations.

Congratulations to Ruth and Aidan! Ruth received Outstanding Publication Award from the department and Aidan Klemm received the Outstanding Researcher Award.

Our collaborative work within 4C EFRC on CO2 electrocatalysis with ionic liquids is published in Langmuir and highlighted in the cover; led by Dr Dongare. Prior work on this also led by Dr Dongare is available in ACS Catalysis. 

Former group member, Dr Cagli published her work in the group focusing on the microwave synthesis of surface functionalized magnetic nanoparticles in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, in collaboration with ORNL!

November 2023

Oguz published his first 1st author paper as the cover article in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats to Oguz and the team including Saudagar, Aidan, and the Tuckerman group at NYU. 

Congrats to Will and Miguel for publishing their experimental work on eutectic electrolytes for flow batteries at Electrochimica Acta. In collaboration with PNNL!

September 2023

Congrats to Aidan Klemm for being selected for DOE SCGSR Fellowship! Aidan will complete his PhD thesis work with advanced characterization approaches at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Congrats to Ruth on her first first-author paper just accepted in ChemComm!

July 2023

Congrats to the newly minted PhD's Drace Penley and William Dean who are joining Argonne National Laboratory as postdoctoral researchers.

Dr Gurkan gets promoted to Professorship. She becomes the first female full professor in Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering at CWRU. 

May 2023

Congrats to Sanduni for completing her MS degree!

Congrats to Saudagar for being selected to attend the Next Generation of Electrochemistry Workshop: NGenE 2023

Will wins the Outstanding Researcher Award from the department! 

Aidan wins the Service and Leadership Award from the department and the 2023 Graduate Dean's Instructional Excellence Award from the School of Graduate Studies.

August 2022 

BEES EFRC, led by Prof. Bob Savinell, is renewed and we are excited to continue our work on electrolytes for flow batteries with accomplished collaborators and expert scientists across the US. Let us know if you would like to be a part of the early career network and work with us!

Also very excited about being part of 4C EFRC : Center for Closing the Carbon Cycle, led by Prof. Jenny Yang at University of California, Irvine. 

Aidan and Eda attended their first Gordon Research Conference, Ionic Liquids!

Ruth and Aidan presented their work on sorbents for CO2 capture at the American Chemical Society meeting in Chicago!

Harrison presented his first conference poster at ACS Chicago!

May 2022 

Congratulations to Lee for his recognition for Outstanding Publication, awarded by CWRU ECHE!

Congratulations to Hazel and Harrison! They both received SOURCE Fellowship to do summer research!

Congratulations to Aidan! He was selected was the GLEI ThinkEnergy Fellow!

Jeff published his neutron reflectivity study of ionic liquid and electrode interfaces at ACS Applied Electronic Materials! Work supported by EFRC BEES and DOE SCGSR!

Welcome to Eda (postdoc) from Turkey!

Welcome to Lauren from Hathaway Brown High School! Lauren will do research in our group for the next two years.

January 2022 

Welcome to new group members: Saudagar (postdoc) from India and Oguz (PhD student) from Turkey!

Our collaborative paper published in Nature Communications: "Evolution of microscopic heterogeneity and dynamics in choline chloride-based deep eutectic solvents". Work from the EFRC BEES team!

December 2021 

Our article with collaborators Xiao Su and Shaama Mallikarjun Sharada on the "Perspective and Challenges in Electrochemical Approaches for Reactive CO2 Separations" is published in iScience. Thanks to Prof. Marta Hatzell and Michelle Muzzio for the invitation to contribute to the Negative Emission Science special issue. 

November 2021 

Aidam, Drace, Will, and Lee presented their work at the AIChE conference in Boston. They also brought back home few awards from the Beer Brewing competition.

Dr Gurkan and collaborators Getman, Kidder, Pentzer, and Park received the DOE's DAC award for developing materials and non-thermal regeneration routes for the capture of carbon dioxide from air.

September 2021 

We welcome two new PhD students: Ruth and Sanduni! Ruth will study CO2 capture from air and Sanduni will study the electroreduction of CO2.

Drace's first 1st-author paper recently got accepted and will be published in the special issue of Frontiers in Energy Research: Rising Stars. Very proud of him in producing this computational study during covid for his mostly experimental PhD thesis topic!

July 2021

The lab receives the prestigious NSF CAREER award.  

Dr Gurkan is promoted to Nord Distinguished Associate Professor with tenure! 

May 2021

Congratulations to Jeff on completing an outstanding PhD! We wish him the best at his new role as a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Welcome to Harrison! Harrison, CWRU undergrad, will be studying ionic liquid electrolytes for energy storage starting this summer.

March 2021

Jeff was at ORNL running experiments at the beamline! Very excited for our next manuscript describing the electrode-electrolyte interfaces under applied potentials as seen by neutron reflectivity. 

Dr Gurkan was virtually at the NASA Space Tech Day on the Hill event. 

Dr Gurkan moderated the Women of Wonder conversation series featuring Dr Debra Wilfong, CWRU alum, as part of celebration of Women's History Month; organized by the Case Alumni Association and the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women. 

January 2021

We start the new year with many exciting news!

Two new postdoctoral researchers joined! Welcome Kevin and Melina (Raziyeh)!

Lee published his study in ACS Sus Chem& Eng. Check it out; it is open access! A truly collaborative work from Gurkan group!

Will and Jeff published their work together in J ElectrochemicalSociety. Funded by DOE EFRC BEES.

Dr Gurkan received 2020 Scialog Award from RSCA on Negative Emissions Science!

December 2020

We have contributed to the comprehensive review on Deep Eutectic Solvents, published in Chemical Reviews. Funded by DOE EFRC BEES.

November 2020

Dr Gurkan delivered an invited talk at the live session for the 2020 Materials Research Society Virtual Meeting: Flow-Based Open Electrochemical Systems.

October 2020

Will and Jeff present their electrode-electrolyte interfacial study of deep eutectic solvents at ECS PRiME! Check it out here! 

September 2020

New members joins the team: Welcome Asya, Emily and Hannah! Asya is an undergraduate engineering student at CWRU. Emily and Hannah are art students at Cleveland Institute of Art.

August 2020

Aidan and Lee's mini review on facilitated transport membranes with ionic liquids is published in Frontiers in Chemistry: https://doi.org/10.3389/fchem.2020.00637

July 2020

Dr Gurkan is selected as a Scialog Fellow to participate in the 2020 Scialog: Negative Emissions Science (NES) initiative, jointly sponsored by Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

June 2020

Jeff and Henry's paper on solvation in deep eutectic solvents is now available at Journal of Physical Chemistry B: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c03296

May 2020

Congrats Henry for graduating with BS/MS with thesis! He be will be pursuing PhD at UC Berkeley!

Congrats Brian on earning his MS degree!

April 2020

Lee's paper on carbon dioxide capture with ionic liquids capsules is published at ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Collaborations with Pentzer group at TAMU. Check it out at https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c01622

December 2019

Jeff's paper on electrode-ionic liquid interface by SERS just got accepted. Check it at the cover of Journal of Physical Chemistry C : https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b08016

Our invited perspective paper is now available in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b01980). Cover and video will follow!

Dr Gurkan presented our space technology research at NASA Space Tech Event at the Capital Hill.

Welcome to Sundar! He joins the group as a postdoc from University of Southern California.

November 2019

Congratulations to Jeff for receiving the DOE SCGSR award!! He will be doing neutron research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for 6-months starting January of 2020.

Dr Gurkan is giving a talk at AIChE Orlando meeting: "Redox flow batteries with ethaline deep eutectic solvent" in sessions: 226 - Redox Flow Batteries for Energy Storage

Dr Gurkan is visiting Tufts University (11/18) for a seminar at Chemical and Biological Engineering Department.

October 2019

Congratulations to I&EC Research's 2019 Class of Influential Researchers. Dr Gurkan is among the 32 global researchers acknowledged in a Virtual Special Issue.

Vivian and Lee's paper is available in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research (doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.9b03202), in the special issue of Chuck Eckert Festschrift

Jeff presented his work on Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy to probe electrode-electrolyte interfaces at ECS Atlanta meeting.

Henry presented a poster on deep eutectic solvents at ECS Atlanta meeting.

Dr Gurkan visited University of Tennessee at Knoxville for a seminar at Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department.

Dr Gurkan delivered a talk at NASA Ames Research Center (Oct 25), XO Seminars.

September 2019

Drace Panley from Ohio State University (MS 2019) joins the group as a PhD student.

William Dean from University of Minnesota (BS 2018) joins the group as a PhD student.

Welcome to Drace and Will!

Dr Gurkan visited Stevens Institute of Technology for a seminar: Nanotechnology series

August 2019

Dr Gurkan gave an invited talk at the Chemistry and Physics of Liquids, Gordon Research Conference at the Holderness School.

June 2019

This year's REU program started at CWRU. Victoria Zubizarreta from University of Pittsburg joins our group. Victoria will be with us for 10 weeks working on ion dynamics within porous media.

May 2019

1st PhD grad from Energy Lab: Vivian turned in her PhD dissertation and she officially graduates Spring 2019.

April 2019

Joan Brennecke, Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering at University of Texas-Austin, visits the Gurkan Lab. Professor Brennecke also gives The Thomas Bell Lecture at Cleveland State University.

March 2019

DOE EFRC Breakthrough Electrolytes for Energy Storage (BEES) had its first All-Hands Meeting at CWRU. Dr Gurkan gave a presentation of Thrust 1: Deep Eutectic Solvents.

February 2019

Hongchao Mao joins the group as a postdoc from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Hoda Amani Hamedani joins the group as a Senior Research Associate from Nano Precision Medical Inc. Welcome to Hongchao and Hoda!

Baby Gurkan #2: Dr Gurkan had a baby girl in February! Welcome Baby Talya!

December 2018

Vivian’s paper got published in Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Jeff’s PCCP paper is highlighted in the back cover of the journal.

November 2018

Vivian presented two talks at 2018 AIChE Pittsburgh meeting: one is her work on batteries and the other on supercapacitors.

October 2018

Jeff’s paper just got published at Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics!

Jeff presented his work at ECS AiMES meeting in Cancun. He also presented our work on surfactant ionic liquids.

Karen's paper just put published in the Journal of Applied Electrochemistry!

Dr Gurkan receives the ACS-PRF doctoral new investigator award!

September 2018

Brian Chen joined the group from the City College of New York!

Yun-Yang Lee joined the group from National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan!

Welcome to Brian and Lee!

August 2018

Dr Gurkan receives the NASA Early Career Faculty Award.

Dr Gurkan gave a talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Ionic Liquids.

July 2018

We are establishing the new DOE EnergyFrontier Research Center BEES: Breakthrough Electrolytes for Energy Storage. Dr Savinell is the Center's director and Dr Gurkan serves as the Thrust Leader for one of the thrusts and Research Integration Officer for the two thrusts.

May 2018

Congratulations to Karen and Suchitra for graduating with MS degree!

Dr Gurkan receives the CWRU VPR Catalyst Award for Publication Subvention.

April 2018

Our paper just got accepted at ACS Materials & Interfaces. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.8b01285

Qianwen and Ningjin are presenting their work at CWRU's ShowCASE on April 20, 2018.

Link: http://case.edu/research/showcase/

March 2018

Dr Gurkan is elected as a director of AIChE Transport and Energy Processes Division.

Dr Gurkan presents at 2018 ACS New Orleans meeting: Physical Chemistry of Ionic Liquids.

February 2018

Dr Gurkan gives a seminar talk at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University.

Our beam-time proposal got accepted. Jeff will be traveling to NIST for neutron measurements to study structure of ionic liquids.

November 2017

Dr Gurkan gives a seminar talk at Cleveland State University (Nov 16).

Energy Lab participated in the World Science for Peace and Development Day at CWRU showcasing our research (Nov 10).

October 2017

Dr Gurkan to give a Session Keynote Talk in Rechargeable / Secondary Battery Technologies for Energy Storage at AIChE, Minneapolis.

Dr Gurkan is the acting Vice Programming Chair for Transport and Energy Processes Division during the 2017 Annual AIChE Fall Meeting. She is also the moderator for the Graduate Student Panel at Women Initiative Committee.

Joseph Williams from Cleveland Institute of Art joins the group as an animation intern.

September 2017

Jeffrey Klein from Colorado School of Mines (BS 2017) joins the group as a PhD student.

ENERGY LAB members will be at 232nd ECS National Meeting. Qianwen's (Vivian) abstract got accepted for oral presentation at Symposium L03: Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry of Ionic Liquids 6. She will present her research on October 4, 2017: 8:40-9 am

August 2017

Dr Gurkan attended the 2017 ASEE Chemical Engineering Summer School in North Carolina.

Dr Gurkan received Nord Grant from UCITE.

June 2017

VeAnn Pham from University of Arizona joins the group as NSF REU participant.

Neil receives SOURCE funding. Neil will be working in the lab during the summer of 2017 on electroreduction processes in ionic liquids. His research support comes from the Centralized Office for Undergraduate Research at CWRU.

November 2016

Dr. Gurkan chaired the following sessions at the 2016 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Francisco: Rechargeable / Secondary Battery Technologies for Energy Storage Battery and Energy Storage Technologies

August 2016

Energy Lab at Case Western Reserve University is established.