GE Global Research

Hello Earth !

I am excited that recently I was able to attend Pittcon 2013, the 64th Conference and Exposition for Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy that was held in Philadelphia.  This year, with more than 18,000 attendees and more than 1000 exhibiting companies, Pittcon provided an excellent forum for reporting new technical achievements in analytical chemistry, measurement science, and materials characterization and providing the opportunity of learning about new products that support our research and make it more productive.

Together with Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University I co-organized an Invited Symposium “Sensors for food quality and safety: from the lab to unobtrusive applications”. We had speakers from US Government (Dr. Betsy Jean Yakes from US Food and Drug Administration), academia (Prof. Michael McAlpine from Princeton University and Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto from Tufts University), and industry (Dr. Leonardo Bonifacio from Opalux and Dr. Radislav Potyrailo from GE Global Research) who demonstrated new opportunities in sensors for food quality and safety that are emerging from the recent developments in sensor technology.

Invited speakers and co-organizers of the Invited Symposium “Sensors for food quality and safety: from the lab to unobtrusive applications” that was held at Pittcon 2013 in Philadelphia, PA March 17-21, 2013. From left: Prof. Michael McAlpine (Princeton University), Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto (Tufts University), Dr. Radislav Potyrailo (GE Global Research), Dr. Betsy Jean Yakes (US Food and Drug Administration), and Dr. Leonardo Bonifacio (Opalux).

Our speakers critically analyzed innovative strategies on how to accomplish measurements of food condition, freshness, and quality using sensors based on photonic, radio-frequency, microwave, and terahertz detection modalities and how to advance these sensor developments from the detailed studies in the laboratory to their practical unobtrusive applications.  At this symposium we have discussed that recent innovations in transducer technologies, sensing materials, data processing, and fabrication principles have facilitated significant achievements in chemical and biological sensing. We showed that modern sensors have demonstrated detection limits down to single molecule levels and sub-second response times, the ability to reject environmental interferences and preserve sensor-response accuracy.  These and many other recent advances in sensing science are facilitating the applications of sensors for the real time determination of food quality and insuring food safety with previously unavailable capabilities.

With more than 164,000 members, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is one of the world’s largest scientific societies and one of the world’s leading sources of authoritative scientific information. A nonprofit organization, chartered by Congress, ACS is at the forefront of the evolving worldwide chemical enterprise and the premier professional home for chemists, chemical engineers and related professions around the globe.

ACS is committed to “Improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry.”  This vision is “to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people.” Together, these two statements represent our ultimate reason for being and provide a strategic framework for our efforts.

ACS supports two national meeting and expositions annually, one in the spring and one in the fall.  The 245th ACS National Meeting in Exhibition will take place April 7-11, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  A number of GE researchers (both at the research center and at the various businesses) will attend this meeting to hear the newest developments in their field of study.

Three of my colleagues will be giving talks at this meeting.  See below to learn more about them, meet their research teams, and hear a bit about the talk they’ll be giving next week.

Robert Perry will be presenting a paper entitled “Progress using Aminosilicones for CO₂ Capture,” at the CO₂ Capture, Sequestration, Conversion and Utilization Symposium. Global concern over rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and its implication in global warming has spawned numerous efforts aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past 4 years, we have focused our efforts on 2 methods for more energy efficient post-combustion capture of CO₂. Both processes use novel amino-silicone solvents and early lab and bench-scale experiments have indicated that energy savings of 25-35% could be realized over that of conventional aqueous-based amine capture technology. If carbon capture is incorporated into power generating facilities (especially coal-fired plants) two advantages would be realized. First, more of the energy that the plant produces will be delivered to the customer as electricity rather than being used to remove CO2; thus keeping electrical rates lower than might otherwise be seen. Second, the power plant emissions would be cleaner and better for the environment.

This is a 4-day symposium focused on the chemistry and technology being used for absorbing CO₂ from anthropogenic sources as well as use of the captured CO₂.  The paper will be given on Wednesday, April 10^th at 11:30 am in the Morial Convention Center, Room 219.

Bob obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1985 from Colorado State University and then spent 10 years at Eastman Kodak working in the areas of new polymerization chemistries. He then moved to GE Silicones and during 9 years, worked in and managed the Americas Fluids Group, which developed products for personal care, the textile industry and oil and gas refining. In 2004, he moved to GE’s Global Research Center. His research has spanned from materials for holographic storage to fuel additives to tire chemistry and most recently carbon capture.

The GE Global Research CO2 Capture Team

Radislav Potyrailowill be presenting an invited talk entitled “Toward rapid detection of biological particles using multivariable resonant label-free biosensors” at the Remotely Controlled Colloids and Interfaces Symposium.

In this talk, Radislav will discuss the results of the recent collaboration with Prof. David Sinton from the University of Toronto on the development of biosensors with significantly improved selectivity and reduced response time. While significant achievements in transducers for biosensing have resulted in demonstrations of single molecule and single particle detection limits, these advances were demonstrated in pristine buffer conditions, often without interferences.  Further, with the reduction of concentrations of biological molecules and biological particles, their diffusive transport to micro- and nano-sensors can easily take long time scales of days and even months, signifying the arrival to the limits of practical measurements.

In this study, the team of GE Global Research and University of Toronto applies GE’s earlier developed multivariable resonant sensors for detection of biological particles in fluids. The operation principle of our developed multivariable resonant sensors is based on measurements of the resonance impedance spectra of the resonator followed by the multivariate analysis of the resulting sensor response.  Two examples of our developed devices are illustrated below.  One of the key aspects of our developed transducers is the ability to reject interferences from the samples that contain species besides our target analyte particles. The design principles of the transducers will be discussed that include (1) designs of the transducers to enhance the sensitivity toward the analyte particles and (2) designs of the sensing region to reduce the diffusion time of biological species to the transducer surface and thus, reduce the time requested for biological detection. Such new developments in biosensors should provide the real-time information about the level of biological contaminants and improve the quality and safety of the resulting products.

Selected examples of GE-developed multivariable resonant sensors operating in the radiofrequency range (left) and microwave frequency range (right).

Radislav obtained an Optoelectronics degree from Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine, and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. He is a Principal Scientist at GE Global Research Center and SPIE Fellow with his research interests that include microanalytical instrumentation, functional nanomaterials, bioinspired photonics, and wireless sensors.  Radislav has over 150 publications and over 75 granted US Patents. He serves as an editor of the Springer book series Integrated Analytical Systems, Consulting Editor of ACS Combinatorial Science, and Editorial Board Member of Sensors. Most recent awards include 2010 Prism Award for photonics innovation by SPIE and Photonics Media and 2012 Blodgett Award by GE Global Research for outstanding technical achievements.

This is a four-day symposium is focused on methodologies for control of biological systems and bio-interfaces and has been organized by Prof. Sergiy Minko (Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Clarkson University), Prof. Igor Luzinov (School of Materials Science and Engineering, Clemson University), and Prof.  Gleb Sukhorukov (School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London).  The paper will be given on Tuesday, April 09, from 10:25 am to 10:50 am in New Orleans Marriott, Room: Studio 10.

Peter Perez-Diaz will be presenting a paper entitled “Combustion of Heavy Fuel Oil” at the 10^th International Symposium on Heavy Oil Upgrading, Production and Characterization, which provides an update on the progress of a research program led by Soumya Gudiyella and Ashwin Raman at the Combustion and Kinetics Laboratory in Bangalore, India. The paper will be presented on Wednesday, April 8^th at 3:40 pm in the Morial Convention Center, Room 231.

Heavy fuel oils (HFO) are used in marine engines for transportation and in industrial gas turbines and boilers for power generation. Due to the complex nature of HFO, the combustion of HFO was studied using a surrogate-based approach. The surrogate fuel for HFO emulates the composition of the fuel during de-volatilization phase and is comprised of a few surrogate fuel components. The surrogate-based methodology provided a paradigm shift in the approach towards modeling liquid fuel combustion using CFD. We moved from traditional single step kinetics approach to using detailed kinetics. Adapting this methodology will result in better emissions predictions over wide range of conditions and thereby result in better combustor designs.

Peter Perez-Diaz obtained a Chemistry degree from the Central University of Venezuela and a Ph.D. in Fuel Science from Pennsylvania State University in 2010, after which he joined GE Global Research. Before attending Penn State, Peter worked for about 5 years in Intevep, the Research and Development Center of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), where he worked on projects involving fuel quality and formulation, technical assistance to the refining sector and development of new products for the domestic market.

Soumya Gudiyella obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois at Chicago in the area of jet-fuel combustion in May 2012. Soumya joined the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore as a Research Engineer in Combustion and Kinetics Lab in June 2012. Her major area is chemical kinetics and she has developed a reduced mechanism for HFO combustion, which can predict different combustion and emission characteristics when HFO in burned in GE gas turbines.

Ashwin Raman obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinios at Chicago in May 2008. He is a Lead Engineer at GE Global Research Center in Bangalore in Combustion and Kinetics Lab. He has been developing high fidelity reduced chemical kinetic mechanisms for conventional and unconventional fuels, which would be used in GE’s Gas Turbine and Reciprocating engine combustor designs and aid in developing future combustors with lower emissions and higher  efficiency.

If you happen to attend the meeting, be sure to talk with the above researchers in person!  You may also post comments and/or questions below. Looking forward to hearing from you and stay tuned for a post with our takeaways from the meeting!

- Vin

Hi, my name is Jeremy, and I’m a senior mechanical engineer at the GE Global Research Center in New York. My job is to figure out which new technologies will change the way the world recovers Oil & Gas, and mobilize Global Research teams to make it happen.

Life at Global Research is incredibly exciting because so many people around here are working in a technology area that they love. So here you have innovative ideas coming to light from all kinds of different angles such as mechanical design, electrical engineering, materials, and turbomachinery. In the end, researchers need to understand how products really work in the field. This is a key element to inventing high-impact products—and close connection with GE business is vital.

A great example of this is GE Artificial Lift. Acquired in 2011, Artificial Lift has jumped at the opportunity to bring GE technologies into their products. And there are lots of opportunities to do that.

The gas turbines, steam turbines, jet engines, and pumps that we make across our Aviation and Energy businesses provide countless turbomachinery technologies for Artificial Lift. The valving and sealing that has to be done with sand trapped under huge pressures brings a whole other level of coating technologies to the table for Artificial Lift. The ultra-reliable alternators that have to pass FAA certification at very high temperatures before they are installed on jet engines teaches GE how to improve the motors we make for artificial lift.

What’s great about trading technologies between businesses is that ideas and technologies flow in both directions. Right now, there is a huge effort to bring a collection of advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools together to add value to Artificial Lift assets. This “big data” architecture is looking like the right framework to use in other parts of GE Oil & Gas as well.

Pretty soon, the customers who use GE turbomachines from Nuovo Pignone, Italy may use the same interface as the customers in Texas or Oklahoma to see how well their equipment is working for them, and to plan ahead for maintenance.

The hydraulic engineers in Artificial Lift have also laid the groundwork for a line of pumps that handle big streams of gas mixed with liquid, and this technology is highly sought by customers of GE businesses across Europe and the Americas.

The Oil & Gas industry is a fast moving one. People know that they have to be smart about recovering and efficiently using Petroleum, the main source of energy for the world. Mega trends show that producers have found huge amounts of petroleum in hard-to-get places, and the industry is working to make this happen with new technology—right now.

With an industry moving at high speeds, innovation must move even faster. Faster means more of the right brains focused on the right things. This is how the new Global Research Oil & Gas Technology Center will help GE deliver the world’s energy through technology.

This center will connect innovative ideas from the Research Center with product expertise from Artificial Lift, and their customers. With this intersection of know-how, GE will be able to evaluate, build, and prove more ideas faster than either of the other groups could do on their own.

The industry experts can put the best tests to work according to what they have learned in the field. The technology experts can work on inventing machines that pass those tests and this center can focus on bringing ideas to light quickly.

I think this new center will allow researchers, business and customers to work together and innovate in ways like never before. If you’re interested in learning more, view the short video below of Gary Ford, President and CEO of GE Artificial Lift. In this clip, Gary shares his thoughts around the Artificial Lift business today and the importance of working with our research centers to develop technology for the Oil and Gas industry.

- Jeremy

NISKAYUNA, NY, April 1, 2013 – In a research lab looking far, far into the future, a team of scientists and engineers from GE are developing next generation laser technologies that are rapidly becoming mainstream on the manufacturing floor. Current and future generations of the manufacturing workforce will be wielding new high-tech laser “tools” that enable them to work faster, more efficiently and with even higher precision.

GE’s work with lasers dates back more than 50 years. Just two years after the laser was invented in 1960, Robert Hall, a physicist in GE’s Niskayuna lab, demonstrated GE’s first big breakthrough in lasers, the invention of the semiconductor (diode) laser. Many of the laser applications in people’s daily lives stem from Dr. Hall’s invention. TV remote controls, price code scanners in stores and laser printers are all examples of laser diodes.

GE scientists have been developing laser technology ever since, with the most significant contributions happening in advanced manufacturing applications. GE has pioneered the use of lasers in manufacturing ranging from hole drilling in aircraft blades for cooling to the first use of lasers for surface treatment of blades for better strength. Recently GE laser scientists at GE Global Research in Shanghai built a unique laser deposition machine that is capable of efficiently building difficult-to-work with materials like titanium into parts as large as 1 meter tall. This additive manufacturing technique is being developed to form the leading edge of our jet engine fan blades, and we are evaluating a range of GE business applications that involve similar complex components.

Lasers are also used to assemble intricate components for a range of applications including filaments for lighting products, electrical generator components, X-ray imaging assemblies and most recently, GE’s new Durathon Battery. GE researchers have also developed new techniques in laser scribing to interconnect cells in a solar module.

“As manufacturing becomes more advanced, we’re beginning to see laser technologies in manufacturing move from specialty applications to common tools used by manufacturing workers on the plant floor,” said Hongqiang Chen, who leads new developments for GE in laser technology. “New manufacturing employees will sort of be like Jedi Knights, wielding laser tools that cut, weld and scribe advanced metal and ceramic materials into parts.”

Chen noted that the integration of laser tools and processes into manufacturing is all about going faster, being more efficient, and improving performance. The global environment for manufacturing is becoming ever more competitive. With product cycle times getting shorter and labor costs rising in developing world, the premium today is on technology to be competitive. In manufacturing, companies are looking for ways to increase the speed and efficiency of production on their plant floors. Laser devices are key tools being used to help them achieve these goals.

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