MONT Annual Users Meeting Poster Session

ICAL Video Tutorial Preview: https://youtu.be/e2xRgVb6Ep0

With the world constantly changing, the Image and Chemical Analysis Laboratory at Montana State University is changing too. With a push for more easily accessible learning experiences through contemporary technology, the ICAL staff took the initiative to produce video tutorials that are free and accessible to the public. The intentions are to build something that all ICAL users, potential users, and interested parties can watch prior to visiting the lab/using the instrument in hopes to have a guide that can help navigate some intimidating machines. Please watch our preview for the ICAL Video Tutorials here: https://youtu.be/e2xRgVb6Ep0

Harrison Bach

Montana State University, Image and Chemical Analysis Laboratory

Biodegradable plastics, such as PHBV, are a promising option for many single use plastic applications, but high cost prevents their widespread use. Carbon, petroleum-based filler materials, such as carbon black, are commonly added to plastics, to reduce the cost and weight, improve the mechanical properties, and make electrically conductive composite materials. Carbon black is toxic and does not biodegrade, and thus is not preferable to add to biodegradable plastics. Biochar is a carbon material produced by pyrolysis of biomass. When produced from waste biomass, it is low cost, has properties comparable to carbon black, and is beneficial during the biodegradation of plastics. This makes it an ideal candidate for use as a filler material in biodegradable plastics.

Seth Kane

MSU

The discovery of an unusual abundance and diversity of diatoms in a Montana lake leads to some unusual biotechnical applications of these relatively underutilized organisms.

David Sands and Wea Nichols

MSU

A great deal of information about snow microstructures pertinent to better understanding both seasonal and perennial snow cover processes, such as firn densification, can be derived from advanced and classical materials characterization techniques, including X-ray computed microtomography (micro-CT) and cross-polarized light imaging. However, there currently exists no standardized technique for ascertaining the full microstructural detail of snow, including both c-axis and a-axis crystallographic orientations of individual snow grains. This missing piece of information is relevant to better understanding a variety of physical snow processes including its mechanical behavior, wet and dry snow metamorphism, sintering, and its dielectric response to incident electromagnetic radiation. Currently work is progressing on making EBSD routine on polycrystalline ice and porous snow and simulated polar firn in the Subzero Research Laboratory (SRL) and the Image Chemical Analysis Laboratory (ICAL).

Evan Schehrer

Montana State University, Civil Engineering

Palaeognathae is an ancient lineage forming one of major clades of modern birds. Their phylogeny has been revised drastically due to the advancement of genome-wide comparative analyses, and the updated phylogeny shows that many of the similar morphological characters of paleognaths, that had been used for prior morphological systematics, might have been acquired independently. The recent progression in the paleognath phylogeny thus provides a chance to trace the evolution of eggshell macro- and microstructure. Here, eggshells of all major clades of paleognaths (including fossil taxa) and selected eggshells of neognath and non-avian dinosaurs are analyzed to quantify structure and crystallography. Our results show diverse microstructures and crystallography amongst paleognath eggshells that can be categorized into three morphotypes, namely, ostrich-, rhea-, and tinamou-styles. These diverse structures have been acquired independently despite their similarities, as is the case of shared body shape evolution among paleognaths. Our findings imply that differentiating homology from homoplasy should be a critical consideration in morphology-based interpretation of fossil eggshell research and other fields of paleontology in general without genome-based phylogenies. The results of the current study can be a helpful starting point for future field-based analyses of eggshells in paleontology and archaeology because diverse fossil paleognath eggs are present in many Cenozoic deposits.

Seung Choi

Seoul National University, Montana State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Microscopy and spectroscopy have historically been techniques used to study microbial life, leading to new discoveries about microbes over the last century. While these techniques yield powerful information, they are generally performed on different sample sets in way that the obtained data cannot be directly compared to each other. Here, we developed a workflow to correlate several modes of single cell resolving analyses, allowing for an improved and in-depth characterization.

George Schaible

Montana State University, Department of Biochemistry

Zeolite‐templated carbons (ZTCs) are a unique class of porous framework carbon materials with a three‐dimensional network of micropores composed of atomically thin, curved hydrocarbon walls, synthesized inside a sacrificial zeolite template. Due to their highly ordered network of micropores, ZTCs have shown interesting applications in energy storage, catalysis, and separations. Nine structural models of ZTC have been reported; in this work, we investigate each molecular model to compare its theoretical characteristics with experimentally observed properties of ZTCs.

Nick Stadie

Montana State University

In this work we pursue control over the phosphorus allotrope (white, red and black phosphorus) formed as a side-product during the direct synthesis of phosphorus-substituted graphitic carbon. Control between white and red phosphorus as the predominant allotrope is achieved by varying the phosphorus halide precursor: PCI3, PBr3, or PI3. This work will shed insight into the mechanism of charge storage in phosphorus-carbon anode materials and guiled future understanding of the phosphorus-carbon binary phase diagram.

Izzy Gordon

Montana State University