Innovative technology earns UB club's first-ever spot in Chem E Cube Competition
The Chem E Cube team — all UB AIChE members — during the virtual qualifying round.
By Peter Murphy
Published June 16, 2026
The University at Buffalo’s American Institute of Chemical Engineers club (UB AIChE) has qualified for the RAPID | ExxonMobil ChemE Cube Competition later this year. This is the first time UB advanced through the highly competitive selection process.
According to the national AIChE organization, 60 teams competed in the virtual qualifying round, and fewer than half — just 24 — advanced as finalists to the in-person portion of the competition.
ChemE Cube is an annual competition where teams of undergraduate students design, build and demonstrate a functioning plant to produce a chemistry defined in the competition’s annual problem statement. This year, teams must create a modular direct-air capture mini-plant that will capture as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as possible during the run time. Teams are encouraged to find a balance between high flowrates, cost, power usage and cube weight to achieve the maximum amount of points. The teams also must design the mini-plant so it can fit inside a cube that is 1-foot in length, width and height.
“Our cube captures carbon dioxide using an amine-based resin solid sorbent, an innovative solution that is not currently used in industry,” says Ashlyn Schwagler, a rising senior in chemical engineering and project co-lead. “Our model also utilizes moisture swing regeneration as opposed to commonly used regeneration methods such as temperature or pressure swing.”
The amine-based resin solid sorbent — a material used to adsorb liquid or gas —grabs and holds onto CO2 when air passes over it. The industry standard for this process usually involves a liquid sorbent. The team is also introducing another innovation during the regeneration process. When a sorbent is full of CO2, it must be emptied so that it can be reused. The standard methods use temperature or pressure as a trigger to remove the CO2, but UB AIChE’s team uses changes in humidity as a trigger, requiring far less energy than current methods.
Leadership for UB AIChE’s team is comprised of all new students this year. According to rising senior chemical engineering student and project co-lead Eva Passalacqua, they learned from last year’s submission and focused their entry on innovation.
“We recommended using a developing solid sorbent technology, allowing us to be more innovative and compelling for market potential,” Passalacqua said. “We had the unique ability to examine the faults of last year’s submission and come up with a plan that better aligned with the requirements of the competition.”
UB AIChE has time to perfect their cube. The in-person portion of the competition will take place in November, but the team is already at work on developing the physical cube, a business pitch presentation, a commercial to sell the product, a regeneration report, and a poster — all requirements of the competition. The competition gives students a chance to apply the chemical engineering concepts they study to tackle a real-world problem. It also allows students to hone their skills in teamwork, project management, communication and problem-solving. Schwagler says UB’s team aims to take advantage of the entire experience.
She explained, “This experience will allow us to network, learn new information and show the chemical engineering community what UB is capable of.”
