Research

‘Cyborg jellyfish’ could aid in deep-sea research, inspire next-gen underwater vehicles

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 20:36:07 +0000

‘Cyborg jellyfish’ could aid in deep-sea research, inspire next-gen underwater vehicles Alexander Jame… Wed, 08/20/2025 - 14:36

Assistant Professor Nicole Xu first became fascinated with moon jellyfish more than a decade ago because of their extraordinary swimming abilities. Today, Xu has developed a way to harness their efficiency and ease at moving through the water in ways that could make some types of aquatic research much easier.

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Beyond Arrakis: Dune researchers confront real-life perils of shifting sand formations

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 20:27:05 +0000

Beyond Arrakis: Dune researchers confront real-life perils of shifting sand formations Alexander Jame… Wed, 08/20/2025 - 14:27

Associate Professor Nathalie Vriend is leading a research effort exploring how sand dunes evolve over time, shifting and surging across the landscape. Her team ultimately wants to answer a pressing question: Can humans efficiently shift or even halt the flow of the planet’s largest dunes?

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Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty

Susan Glairon — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 10:57:58 +0000

Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty Susan Glairon Sat, 08/16/2025 - 04:57

Susan Glairon

The Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty members in Fall 2025. Meet Assistant Professors Laura Sunberg and Zhi Li—and see why we’re so excited to have these talented scholars on our team.

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New research paves way for greener construction practices

Susan Glairon — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 13:26:44 +0000

New research paves way for greener construction practices Susan Glairon Fri, 08/15/2025 - 07:26

Susan Glairon

The study, led by civil engineering PhD student Daniel Donado-Quintero, shows that setting carbon benchmarks can encourage asphalt producers to lower emissions—for example by using more recycled materials or optimizing production processes—supporting Colorado’s Buy Clean Act and CDOT’s efforts to reduce embodied carbon.

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New bioimaging device holds potential for eye and heart condition detection

Charles Ferrer — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:22:57 +0000

New bioimaging device holds potential for eye and heart condition detection Charles Ferrer Wed, 08/13/2025 - 10:22

Researchers at �山�� have developed a new bioimaging device that can operate with significantly lower power and in an entirely non-mechanical way. It could one day improve detecting eye and even heart conditions.

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Professor Kim See joins Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Susan Glairon — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 19:51:38 +0000

Professor Kim See joins Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Susan Glairon Mon, 08/11/2025 - 13:51

See is advancing new technologies to boost the performance of future sustainable batteries.

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Research institute building the AI-literate workforce of the future receives major new grant

Emily Adams — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:28:04 +0000

Research institute building the AI-literate workforce of the future receives major new grant Emily Adams Thu, 07/31/2025 - 13:28

Pioneering research institute led by the �山�� launched in 2020 to explore how classrooms could become more effective and engaging learning environments.

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Researchers test the trustworthiness of AI—by playing sudoku

Emily Adams — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:15:26 +0000

Researchers test the trustworthiness of AI—by playing sudoku Emily Adams Mon, 07/28/2025 - 11:15

In a new study, a team of computer scientists and engineers from the �山�� created nearly 2,300 original sudoku puzzles, which require players to enter numbers into a grid following certain rules, then asked several AI tools to fill them in.

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New cancer therapy clings to tumors, with inspiration from gecko toes

Susan Glairon — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 17:20:24 +0000

New cancer therapy clings to tumors, with inspiration from gecko toes Susan Glairon Wed, 07/23/2025 - 11:20

Lisa Marshall

A gecko-inspired technology developed by the Shields Lab, in collaboration with doctors at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, uses a specially designed material that adheres to tumors inside the body and steadily releases chemotherapy drugs over several days—potentially allowing for fewer but longer-lasting therapies.

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Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 19:15:28 +0000

Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/17/2025 - 13:15

Jeff Zehnder

Anthony Straub (r) with PhD student Kian Lopez in a lab.

Anthony Straub is making revolutionary advances in water purification for life on Earth and in space.

Using nanoscale membranes—thinner than 1/100th the width of a human hair—Straub has developed a technology that could significantly improve conventional water treatment, microchip production, and desalination.

His efforts are receiving major recognition from the National Science Foundation, which is honoring Straub with a CAREER Award, a five-year, $550,000 grant to advance his research.

“We’re excited about this work,” said Straub, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the �山��. “For desalination, switching to these membranes could produce 50 times cleaner water while lasting much longer. It’s really a big deal.”

Membrane technology has been in use for water purification for over five decades. It works well for many applications, but filter degradation is a problem, and even at peak conditions, some contaminants can still pass through the membranes.

“Current membranes are very hard to clean,” Straub said. “A major advance of this new membrane is you can expose it to concentrated bleach and cleaning chemicals. It also removes almost every impurity from water – salts, dissolved metals, and organic contaminants like hormones, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals.”

In the new process, Straub traps a tiny layer of air inside a porous membrane. Using pressure, water is forced against the membrane until it evaporates and recondenses on the other side of the air layer. The technology requires no additional electricity or heat and operates with pumps already used in water systems.

“It’s reimagining distillation. Thermal distillation – essentially boiling water – has been used to purify water for centuries, but it is really energy intensive. We’re laying the groundwork for distillation with pressure as the driving force, and it is 10 times more energy efficient,” Straub said.

The technology has advanced beyond the initial research phase. Straub has conducted successful small-scale tests and has two provisional patents on the design. Last year, he co-founded a spinoff company and received a grant from NASA for a prototype purification system for astronauts to use on a future Moon base.

Design of ultrathin air-trapping membranes for pressure-driven vapor transport. For more details, read "Pressure-driven distillation using air-trapping membranes for fast and selective water purification" in the journal Science Advances.

“There were papers discussing this process; the theoretical foundations were there. Our major advance was demonstrating it successfully. We had to understand how to develop materials with really small pore sizes that can trap air,” Straub said.

A major focus of the future work will be better analysis and modeling of the process.

“This technology is transitioning to applied use, but some aspects of the process aren’t as well understood. That’s very important for end users, to know how this design works, how the transport happens. We have some models, but they’re for very idealized systems, which isn’t how things work in the real world,” he said.

Beyond traditional water treatment, the process has drawn significant interest from microchip producers. Semiconductor wafers are manufactured in clean rooms, and ultrapure water is needed to rinse wafers and wash away residue produced during chip etching.

Even the tiniest water impurities can damage the chips, so water must be purified to levels far beyond what is needed for regular drinking water, requiring an expensive, elaborate system. Straub’s technology would dramatically simplify the process and lower costs.

“This is a huge potential market. Companies currently use a treatment process involving at least 14 different steps, and they avoid shutting down the machines because they’re worried that particles could enter the production line,” he said.

In addition to advancing research, Straub is also developing an education and outreach component as part of the CAREER award. Collaborating with a faculty colleague in the mechanical engineering department, Daniel Knight, the pair are developing a project-based water treatment course that will be used in rural K-12 schools across Colorado.

“Lots of these schools are in areas where they don’t have enough water, so this is really important,” Straub said.

He hopes the outreach will be both educational and promote career opportunities for the next generation of water engineers.

“My parents grew up in Latin America in underserved areas,” he said. “In undergrad, I was drawn to improve water treatment in low resource settings, and I caught the research bug. I want to encourage other people, too. It’s about making the world a better place.”

Anthony Straub is making revolutionary advances in water purification for life on Earth and in space. Using nanoscale membranes—thinner than 1/100th the width of a human hair—Straub has developed a...

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