Principal Investigator

Matteo Pasquali

A.J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Director of Carbon Hub

OES Room 393 

mp@rice.edu  

Matteo Pasquali is the A. J. Hartsook Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University, where he also serves as Chair of the Chemistry Department and previously served as Co-Director of the Carbon NanoTechnology Laboratory, as Master of Lovett College and as member of the academic senate. After receiving his Laurea from University of Bologna and PhD from University of Minnesota, Matteo joined Rice University in 2000 to start a laboratory on soft materials, which evolved into a key center for the scalable manufacturing and application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene materials with enhanced mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. The laboratory houses 11 PhD students and 1 postdoc and targets applications in wearables, energy transmission and harvesting, biomedicine, aerospace, and defense. These CNT materials are already incorporated into prototypes (field emitters, data cables) and high-end products (audio cables). To make these CNT-applied techniques and materials more accessible, Matteo currently focuses on understanding the mechanisms and phenomena of floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD) reactors to optimize CNT synthesis. Matteo has advised over 90 graduate students and postdocs, who are now in key positions in industry, academia, national laboratories, startups, and finance. Matteo’s work is funded by wide range of industries ranging from international and national oil companies to automotive, aerospace, electronics, and high tech companies. Matteo founded two companies, DexMat (smart CNT materials) and NanoLinea (medical applications of CNT fibers). Matteo’s work has been recognized by numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER, Goradia innovation prize, Schlack award for man-made fibers, and multiple NASA Tech Brief Awards. Matteo is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Read More

Associated Research Professor

Glen C. Irvin, Jr.

Research Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor, Chair of Carbon Technical Council of Carbon Hub

OES Room 391

glen.c.irvin@rice.edu

Dr. Glen Irvin acquired his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1995. Subsequently, he achieved his doctoral degree at Tulane University in 1999. After working in the industry for several decades, he has since joined the lab in 2018.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Eldar Khabushev, Ph.D.

OES Room 392 

ek65@rice.edu

Dr. Eldar Khabushev earned his Master’s degree in Applied Physics and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Science and Technology (MIPT, Russia). As part of his Master’s project, he worked on nonlinear optics and noble metal plasmonic nanostructures. Later, Dr. Khabushev became interested in materials science and shifted his focus towards the development of nanomaterials for his doctoral studies carried out at Aalto University (Finland) and SkolTech (Russia). He studied the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their applications in electronics, photonics, and energy storage under the supervision of Prof. Tanja Kallio and Prof. Albert Nasibulin. In 2023, he received a Doctoral degree in Chemical Engineering from Aalto University.

Recently, Dr. Khabushev joined Professor Matteo Pasquali’s Research Group in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University to continue his research in the field of sustainable synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their applications.

Ph.D. Candidates

Aosheen Anand

OES Room 380 
aa257@rice.edu

AnaVi Benavides-Figueroa

OES Room 380 
ab152@rice.edu

 Davide Cavuto 

OES Room 380 
dc103@rice.edu

Davide Cavuto completed his BS degree in Chemical Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome in 2021. He then pursued further education at the Polytechnic of Milan, obtaining his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. During his Master’s thesis research, he analyzed CFD techniques with the diffusive transport phenomena in Gas Diffusion Layers, related to CO2 electroreduction. In 2023, he continued with the chemical engineering PhD program at Rice University. His ongoing research is about Carbon Nanotubes synthesis through the floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition method.

Alex Dantzler

OES Room 380 
ard8@rice.edu

Alex Dantzler graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Chemical Engineering in 2019. After a brief stop at a specialty chemicals start-up for printed electronics, he returned to school and joined the Pasquali group as a Ph.D. student in 2021. His interests lie at the intersection of advanced materials research and techno-economics of scale-up. Specifically, he is interested in improving the synthesis and processing of carbon into value-added products capable of displacing high-carbon-intensity materials (e.g., metals, concrete, etc.).

Michelle Durán-Chaves

OES Room 380 
md59@rice.edu

Chaves received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Costa Rica, 2017. Her undergraduate research focused on the study of copper catalyst materials for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide. Michelle joined the Pasquali Lab as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry in 2019. Her research interests include solution spinning and fiber processing of carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanotubes as well as chemical functionalization of these nanomaterials.

 Mingrui (Lily) Gong

OES Room 380 
mg111@rice.edu

 Jui Junnarkar

OES Room 380 
jj88@rice.edu

Jui Junnarkar received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, K.K Birla Goa campus, India in 2021. Her undergraduate research was on developing methods of forming natural nanoemulsions used for cosmetic research and working on biosurfactants. She joined the graduate program at Rice University under the supervision of Prof. Matteo Pasquali in 2021. Her research focuses on the growth and synthesis of carbon nanotubes using the FCCVD process.

Joe Khoury

OES Room 380 
jfk10@rice.edu

Joe Khoury received his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering in 2020 from Cleveland State University. He enrolled in the Accelerated Master’s Program at Cleveland State University and received his master’s degree in 2021. His research focused on fabricating boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) and poly(vinyl) alcohol composite fibers. Joe joined the Pasquali group at the end of 2021 to continue working on his research interest including purification of BNNTs, dissolution of BNNTs and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in superacid solutions, and fabrication of macroscopic materials of neat BNNTs and CNTs.

Mitchell Trafford

OES Room 380 
mtrafford@rice.edu  

Mitchell Trafford graduated from The University of Tulsa with degrees in Chemical Engineering and Mathematics and a minor in Chemistry. His undergraduate research in organic chemistry focused on developing new catalyst materials for sustainable and efficient Suzuki-Miyaura cross couplings. He joined the Pasquali group in 2015 as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. His research interests include CNT-superacid phase behavior and rheology, as well as characterizing and optimizing the physical properties of CNT materials.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Kathryn Dale

OES Room 380  
dlh7@rice.edu  

Danielle Hedvig

OES Room 380 
dlh7@rice.edu  

2024 Summer Interns REU/RET

Victor Cruz

OES 380
victocruz088@gmail.com

Lab Alumni