Dr. Marcus L. Young, Director of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes Institute (AMMPI) and Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas will give a seminar titled "Synthesis and Characterization of Organoclays for the Sequestration of Technetium and Iodine" to the interested faculty and students at Discovery Park.

Abstract

In this presentation, research from Dr. Young’s X lab at the University of North Texas (UNT) will be discussed with a focus on thermo-mechanical processing and advanced characterization of NiTi-based high temperature shape memory alloys (HTSMAs). A brief discussion of SMAs and HTSMAs, their applications, their characteristic properties, their current challenges, and techniques such as synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) to address these challenges will be presented. Within this context, one such project will be presented on HTSMAs as a material for use as actuation devices. The objectives of this project are to develop cost-effective HTSMAs, specifically NiTi-Hf and NiTi-Zr alloys, and determine processing conditions to produce alloys into useable geometries (e.g., tubes, plates, wires, and powders) through investigation of oxidation and precipitation characteristics of these alloys. Advanced characterization techniques are used to examine these alloys, where SR-XRD on HTSMAs in various processing conditions during in situ thermal cycling is coupled with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results to reveal successful thermo-mechanicalprocessing routes of these HTSMAs.

Bio

Dr. Marcus L. Young is the Director of the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes Institute (AMMPI) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas (UNT), joining the faculty following a two-year position as a research metallurgist at ATI Wah Chang, a large metal supplier company. Dr. Young received a B.F.A. in Sculpture and a B.F.A. in Ceramics from UNT and was the sole proprietor of a ceramics business before returning to school, where he received a B.S. in Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineering from Colorado School of Mines and a PhD in Materials Science Engineering from Northwestern University (NU). Dr. Young’s PhD research was supported by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), where he spent significant time working at the Advanced Photon Source (APS). Following his education, Dr. Young worked as an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Art Institute of Chicago and NU for one year and then as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany (RUB) for more than two years. More recently, Dr. Young was on sabbatical at Technical University in Chemnitz, Deutschland in 2022 and was on a AvH Summer Fellowship at RUB in 2024. At UNT, Dr. Young’s research group is focused on the development, processing, and characterization of structural metallic materials, specifically shape memory alloys, complex concentrated alloys, and strain glass alloys, and their porous and composite counterparts.

Dr. Young has over 95 peer-reviewed publications, over 45 conference proceedings, and over 230 conference posters/presentations with many specifically on SMAs. Dr. Young participated in many shape memory alloy conferences and he has been involved with the Consortium for the Advancement of Shape Memory Alloy Research and Technology (CASMART) for approximately 15 years, where he leads the Processing Working Group and provides technical information to advance SMA technology with academia, industry, and national laboratories. Research experience in academic, industrial, and national laboratory settings has given Dr. Young unique insight into many aspects of the development, processing, and characterization of SMA technology and their commercial application.