Issue date: 4/1/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Sean Roberts George Engel, SIUE professor of electrical and computer engineering, holds up an old microprocessor to demonstrate growth in processor design.

SIUE held their first Technology and Innovation Expo Tuesday, which included presenters from the campuses of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, SIU School of Medicine and SIUE.

According to Kristine Jarden, organizing committee member and director of the SIUE Entrepreneurship Center, the main goal was to "showcase the student and faculty innovation that is coming out of the three campuses while showing these innovations as a viable economic tool within the region."

The showcase featured presentations from four SIUE faculty members, three from SIUC and two from the School of Medicine. Topics ranged from a potential herpes vaccination, possible treatments for Alzheimer's disease and magnetic refrigeration systems all the way to inexpensive chemistry equipment that could save schools and potential consumers thousands of dollars toward complex chemistry work.

According to Michael J. Shaw, professor of chemistry and Bradley L. Noble, professor of electrical and computer engineering, generally, the type of chemistry electronics that schools purchase are a minimum of $5,000: the hardware at $2,500, and another $2,500 for the software. For around $50, Shaw and Noble have invented a handmade potentiostat, a machine used to measure units in electrochemistry, which works 95 percent as well as the expensive version.

"We chose to showcase the ?potentiostat because it has the potential to be a commercial product ?relatively quickly and because it should have a strong educational impact," Shaw said.

The machine can be built with materials that are found at local hardware stores, and for an additional $100, the machine will have a 98 percent success rate. Shaw and Noble's version can also work with Microsoft programs, making it easier for schools to work with the obtained data.

"All students should be aware that the faculty at SIUE are involved in first-class research projects and that many of us have international reputations in our particular fields of expertise," Shaw said.

Serdar Celik, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at SIUC, is working on another world-class research project dealing with magnetic refrigeration. Magnetic refrigeration can be used in automobile air conditioning systems, space shuttles and domestic refrigerators. Not only will this new technology be green, but according to Celik, "by 2015 here will be a movement toward magnetic refrigeration."

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