Florida Institute of Technology

James R. Brenner

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

B.S., University of Delaware
M.S., The University of Michigan, 1991
Ph.D., The University of Michigan, 1994

Professional Experience

Vice President for Sensor Development, Meditech Fefer, 2001.

Senior Engineer, Westinghouse Savannah River Company, Hydrogen Technology, 1997-1998.

Postdoctoral Research Chemist, Argonne National Laboratory,
1994-1997.

Research Interests

Dr. Brenner's research activities focus on development of nanostructured adsorbents, purifiers, and heat transfer media for the hydrogen, microelectronics, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceutical industries.

The key themes of his work are

1) development and characterization of novel porous materials;
2) applications involving interstitial compounds such as hydrides, nitrides, and carbides; and
3) characterization and applications development involving
interactions of molecules with surfaces.

Current Research

Since joining the faculty at Florida Tech in 1998, Prof.
Brenner has worked in the areas of hydrogen storage,
purification, and sensing. All of these areas continue to
build on the same fundamental concepts described previously.
Most of his work has focused on development
of metal hydride-based (typically Pd alloy) thin films on
porous stainless steel (PSS) foam supports for hydrogen purification.
Hydrogen purification is critical to the implementation
of hydrogen fuel cells, as the fuel cells are intolerant of
even parts per million of impurities of sulfur and CO.
No one would want their hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to die
prematurely of "engine failure" after only a few thousand miles.
This work is part of a larger, Florida Tech-wide effort toward
a completely hydrogen-driven airplane.

The fluxes through such thin film hydrogen permeation
membranes are limited by the thickness of the metal hydride thin
film, which is in turn limited by the maximum pore size of the support.
As a result, in 2006, he has begun work toward partially filling
the PSS supports with a templated porous carbon, before depositing
a now much thinner, bimetallic metal hydride thin film on top
using concepts developed by Raymond Schaak of Texas A&M. Also
in 2006, Dr. Brenner is beginning development of nanoporous
metallic foams based on the pioneering work of Bryce Tappan of
Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In 2001, Dr. Brenner collaborated with Dr. Martha Williams
of NASA-KSC and Prof. Gordon Nelson of Florida Tech on a
family of porous polymer candidates to replace the now infamous
orange insulation around the liquid oxygen tanks of the
Space Shuttle Columbia that flaked off during the 2003 disaster.

In 2001, Dr. Brenner began development of porous
polymers for molecular recognition, with applications in the
electronic nose and tongue businesses and in detection and
purification of enantiomers used in the pharmaceutical,
agricultural chemical, and fragrance industries.
Recently, he has begun development of an electronic nose as well,
based on collection of impedance spectra of the responses of
an array of polymer/carbon composites deposited on capacitors
to a range of scents. The detection of such aromas, as well as
quantification of concentrations, is determined via advanced
pattern recognition algorithms such as linear discriminant
analysis. Both the sensing and the pattern recognition are
accomplished using National Instruments LabView and a
LabView pattern recognition toolkit from Camo Corporation.
Dr. Brenner also has plans for adapting this technology for
the detection of molecules and macromolecules in liquids, with
an eventual goal of detection of cancer biomarkers in blood and
urine for use in an inexpensive kit associated with a yearly
physical examination.

In 2005, Dr. Brenner began work on development of an array of
porous carbons around a family of monodispersed silica templates
using molecular self assembly methods using sucrose, phenol
and formaldehyde, or resorcinol and formaldehyde as the carbon-
forming precursors. Upon extraction of the silica using KOH,
the pores in the carbons were the imprints of the silica templating
agents. In late 2006, Dr. Brenner plans to evaluate these templated
porous carbons as novel gas diffusion layers for hydrogen fuel cells.
Gas diffusion layers have largely been ignored in fuel cell
development and are currently best described as a 2-D mesh of
carbon fibers similar to those found in paper. If fuel cells are
going to have sufficiently high current densities in order to be
practical in vehicles, one problem that must be solved is the
relatively poor mass transfer through existing gas diffusion layers.
The goal of the templated porous carbon project is to discover an
optimal pore size distribution for such gas diffusion layers.

Previous Experience

Prof. Brenner obtained his B.S. in ChE from the
University of Delaware. While at Delaware, he
completed two Monte Carlo simulation projects.
The first involved the depolymerization of lignin
(wood), the key first step in papermaking. The
second project involved the generation of
hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin film
semiconductors, followed by an analysis of how
synthesis conditions affected film
properties and device performance.

He then went on to do his M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in chemical engineering from The
University of Michigan under Prof. Levi Thompson,
with his work focusing on development of catalysts
for hydrodesulfurization and hydrodenitrogenation
of crude oil. Since the start of Dr. Brenner's
graduate work, the key themes of his work are

1) development and characterization of novel porous materials;
2) applications involving interstitial compounds; and
3) characterization and applications development involving
interactions of molecules with surfaces.

During this time, Prof. Brenner became an expert in a
number of areas of materials characterization
including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy of
molecules adsorbed (sticking) to surfaces and
temperature-programmed desorption of these molecules,
residual gas analysis of molecules desorbed from surfaces,
chemisorption and physisorption, pore and particle size
distribution analysis, surface area measurements, and
scanning and transmission electron microscopies.
Prof. Brenner's synthesis expertise during this time
was in the development of porous, high surface area metal
nitrides and carbides, which are interstitial compounds.

After continuing similar work, as well as some work in the
area of nanotechnology while a postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory,
Prof. Brenner worked at Westinghouse Savannah River
Company (WSRC) in the area of hydrogen storage using metal
hydrides, yet another class of interstitial compounds.
His key development during his work at WSRC was the use
of metallic foams, a new class of porous metals, as media
for the enhancement of heat transfer into and out of
hydrogen storage beds. Such a development was critical
for our nation's tritium mission (Tritium is a nuclear
isotope of hydrogen.), but if hydrogen vehicles are to
become a reality, cutting down the time for refueling
to a reasonable time, as this heat transfer improvement
enabled, was critical.