full circle

Houston scientist earns nanocarbon research award named after fellow Rice chemist

Bruce Weisman's career has come full circle with a recent award. Photo via rice.edu

Rice University chemist Bruce Weisman has been awarded the Richard E. Smalley Research Award for his decades of nanocarbon research, according to a statement from the university.

The honor is a full circle moment for Wiseman, as the award is named after Weisman's long-time Rice colleague and friend, Rick Smalley, who Wiseman said helped shape his career.

“It changed my career,” Weisman said in a statement from Rice about his work with Smalley. “Everything I’ve done in the last 20 years has been an outgrowth, a consequence of that.”

Still, Weisman has earned many achievements of his own. He joined Rice's faculty in 1979 as a spectroscopist and first began working with Smalley in 1985 after Smalley's groundbreaking discovery of carbon 60, or buckyballs. The discovery proved that carbon could take on other forms and it won Smalley and his teammates the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Weisman and Smalley then collaborated on experiments to measure the electronic spectra of carbon 60 and carbon 70. In the early 2000s, they published two seminal nanotube studies in Science in which Weisman shared his new faster, simpler and cheaper spectrometric method of assaying nanotubes, according to Rice.

In 2004 Weisman founded a company, Applied NanoFluorescence, to commercialize the technology. The company still exists and continues to research the optical properties of carbon nanotubes.

He is also an elected fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and former chair of the ECS Nanocarbons Division. The ECS will present Weisman with the 2024 Smalley Research Award in May. The award is given every two years to recognize “outstanding achievements in, or scientific contributions to, the science of fullerenes, nanotubes and carbon nanostructures.”

Earlier this month, another Rice professor won a highly competitive award. Assistant professor Amanda Marciel, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering, was granted a National Science Foundation's CAREER Award that comes with $670,406 over five years to continue her research in designing branch elastomers.

The grant will also create opportunities in soft matter research for undergraduates and underrepresented scientists. Click here to learn more.

Meanwhile, another Houston-based chemist was also recently recognized for their work. Baylor College of Medicine's Livia Schiavinato Eberlin was named the 2024 recipient of the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research in December.

The award from the Houston-based Welch Foundation recognizes the accomplishments of chemical scientists in Texas who are early in their careers. Eberlin will be granted $100,000 for this honor.

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A View From HETI

Square Robot's newest robot is certified to operate in hazardous locations and at extreme temps. Photo courtesy of Square Robot

Houston- and Boston-based Square Robot Inc.'s newest tank inspection robot is commercially available and certified to operate at extreme temperatures.

The new robot, known as the SR-3HT, can operate from 14°F to 131°F, representing a broader temperature range than previous models in the company's portfolio. According to the company, its previous temperature range reached 32°F to 104°F.

The new robot has received the NEC/CEC Class I Division 2 (C1D2) certification from FM Approvals, allowing it to operate safely in hazardous locations and to perform on-stream inspections of aboveground storage tanks containing products stored at elevated temperatures.

“Our engineering team developed the SR-3HT in response to significant client demand in both the U.S. and international markets. We frequently encounter higher temperatures due to both elevated process temperatures and high ambient temperatures, especially in the hotter regions of the world, such as the Middle East," David Lamont, CEO of Square Robot, said in a news release. "The SR-3HT employs both active and passive cooling technology, greatly expanding our operating envelope. A great job done (again) by our engineers delivering world-leading technology in record time.”

The company's SR-3 submersible robot and Side Launcher received certifications earlier this year. They became commercially available in 2023, after completing initial milestone testing in partnership with ExxonMobil, according to Square Robot.

The company closed a $13 million series B round in December, which it said it would put toward international expansion in Europe and the Middle East.

Square Robot launched its Houston office in 2019. Its autonomous, submersible robots are used for storage tank inspections and eliminate the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments.

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