Over 120 representatives from local industry and the community attended Western Engineering's 4th Annual Reserach Day.  More than 90 faculty members and graduate students presented their research in poster format.

"Research Day is a day for us to communicate our research to the broad community and ourselves," says Dean Berruti.  “This direct relation and interaction with industry is important to us, as well as simply celebrating our research skills and accomplishments.”

Research Day was also an opportunity to recognize some of the recent patents that were received by Western engineering. Alex Navarre, Director, Industry Liaison, presented the patent award to the following:

*Dr. Hugo deLasa and co-inventor Ms. Hadeel Ibrahim - Photocatalytic Reactor and Method for Destruction of Organic Air-Borne Pollutants, to be used to develop the next generation of air cleaning technology.

*Co-inventors Drs. Amarjeet Bassi, Jesse Zhu, Gerry Margaritis, Chris Lan and Ying Zheng - Liquids-Solids Circulating Fluidized Bed, with potential applications including the recovery of proteins, organic acids, amino acids, precious metals, purification of pharmaceuticals, desalting, and de-ionization of water.

*Dr. Jesse Zhu and co-inventors Mr. Jianzhang Wen, Ms. Yingliang Ma, Dr. Hui Zhang - Apparatus for Volumetric Metering of Small Quantity of Powder from Fluidized Beds, where in the not to distant future drugs such as insulin that are currently injected will be inhaled by the patient.

*Dr. Judit Puskas and co-inventors Dr. Christoph Paulo and Dr. Prince Antony - Arborescent Thermoplastic Elastomers and Products Therefrom, a good candidate for biomedical applications such as implants. The material is currently being evaluated for license by several Medical Device Manufacturers.

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