Welcome to Dr. Yang Xiao's Website

I am a Senior Research Engineer in the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. I manage a chemical engineering laboratory as an independent PI (Principal Investigator). Using the Varma Reaction Engineering Research Fund, I investigate topics in biomass, waste plastic & shale gas conversion, chemical & catalytic reaction engineering and related process engineering.

Research Projects

• Safety analysis of chemical reactors: parametric sensitivity and prevention of thermal runaway
• Shale gas utilization: nonoxidative coupling of methane; direct oxidation of methane to oxygenates
• Low-temperature catalytic selective oxidation of methanol
• Density functional theory (DFT) calculations for Pt-Bi bimetallic catalysts
• Catalytic bio-oil upgrading using hydrogen and methane as reductants
• The bench-scale biodiesel production via heterogeneous catalytic process

News

December 2021:

I am invited to give a virtual talk "Catalytic CO2 Hydrogenation to Value-Added Chemicals and Fuels at the interface of Metal-Oxide" at the 2021 IEEE Sustainable Power and Energy Conference (iSPEC 2021, Nanjing, China). here.

My patent "Catalytic Non-Oxidative Catalytic Conversion of Methane to Hydrocarbons" disclosure is being licensed by Swift Fuels LLC.

My research is highlighted in Purdue's News Release - "ChE research invents revolutionary catalysts for methane activation; Discovery could advance natural gas/shale gas utilization, reduce methane emissions, and ease climate change". Please find a link: here.

November 2021:

I am excited to accept the offer of a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering within the College of Engineering and Science (COES) in Louisiana Tech University (LATech). I will be establishing the Xiao Research Group of Reaction Engineering and Catalysis Science there. I am looking for graduate students to join my research group at LATech.

October 2021:

Our paper entitled "Direct Methane Activation by Atomically Thin Platinum Nanolayers on Two-Dimensional Metal Carbides" has been published online in the journal of Nature Catalysis. (Nature Catalysis, VOL 4, October 2021, 882-891) Please find the paper link here. Please also find a sharable link here. If you need a pdf copy, please contact me via xiao63@purdue.edu.

August 2021:

I am excited to be the instructor of a core chemical engineering course: ChE378 Heat and Mass Transfer with 74 students enrollment.

June 2021:

Great News! My paper on methane activation is in principle accepted by the journal of Nature Catalysis. More update soon.

Our paper entitled "One-Step Combustion Synthesis of Carbon-Coated NiO/Ni Composites for Lithium and Sodium Storage" has been accepted in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds. Please find the paper link here.

May 2021:

Congratulations to Pratik Potdar, an alumnus working in the group, who has accepted the offer of the M.S. program at Columbia University with a specialization in Data and Computational Science. Wish he does great here!

April 2021:

Congratulations to Zihao Meng, an alumnus working in the group, who has accepted the offer of Ph.D. program at the University of Houston. Wish he do great here!

March 2021:

Our collaborative paper entitled "Low-pressure hydrothermal processing of mixed polyolefin wastes into clean fuels" has been accepted in the journal of Fuel. Please find the paper link here.

Jan. 2021:

My paper entitled "Hydrogenolysis of glycerol to propanediols over silicotungstic acid catalysts intercalated with CuZnFe hydrotalcite-like compounds" has been accepted in the journal of Catalysis Today. Please find the paper link here.

I am glad to host three virtual sessions with Dr. Zhenglong Li from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Prof. Mingzhou Jin from University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) regarding process modeling using Aspen plus software packages. I hope that we can develop more collabative opportunities.

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