Biographical Information
Darryl P.Butt , Ph.D.
Professor, Chair
MSE graduate coordinator
Faculty
Darryl P. Butt is a Professor and Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at Boise State University, and an Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) in Idaho Falls, ID. He received his Ph.D. in Ceramic Science in 1991 and his B.S. in Ceramic Science and Engineering with a minor in Technical Writing in 1984, from the Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Butt held several positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory between 1991 and 1999. As a post doctoral fellow he studied very high temperature hydrogen-solid reactions and thermodynamics of transition metal and actinide carbides. This work included developing planar laser induced fluorescence methods for characterizing and directly imaging plasmas produced during laser ablation processes, modeling gas-solid reactions, and modeling of binary, ternary, and quaternary phase diagrams. In 1994 he established the Materials Corrosion and Environmental Effects Laboratory within the Materials Science and Technology Division, where as a Team Leader, he lead efforts in a variety of areas including aqueous and high temperature oxidation of ceramics, alloys, and protective coatings, radiation effects on materials corrosion, gallium vaporization, sequestration of carbon dioxide, and development of high temperature materials and seals, and carbon dioxide sequestration. In 1998 Dr. Butt became the Lead Project Leader for Weapons Dismantlement and Fissile Materials Transparency where is managed and oversaw technical efforts and policy development related to a possible START III treaty, and Russian-U.S. lab to lab technical interactions in nuclear non-proliferation. From 1998-2000, on leave from LANL, Dr. Butt lead an $85M DOE-Industry program at Ceramatec, Inc., in collaboration with Air Products and Chemicals Co. to develop microchannel gas separation membranes for the production syngas from natural gas. His research led to a number of key patents in the field. From 2000-2005 Dr. Butt was an Associate Professor at University of Florida in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering with close collaborations with the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Science.
Dr. Butt has approximately 170 publications in journals such as J. Am. Ceram. Soc., J. Mater. Res., J. Mater. Sci., J. Electrochem. Soc., J. Nucl. Mater., Met. Trans. A, J. Nucl. Mater., Acta. Mater., J. Non-Crystalline Solids, J. Appl. Phys., J. Physical Chem. B, Physica C, J. Mater. Sci. Lett., Mater. Sci. Forum, Phil. Mag., Oxid. Metals, CALPHAD, Electrochemica Acta., Corrosion, Corrosion Science, Scripta Mater., Surface and Interface Analysis, Fatigue and Fracture Mech., J. of Test. and Eval., World Resource Review, Greenhouse Gas Control Technology, Energy Convers. Mgmt., and Energy (Oxford).
He has received several awards including a Los Alamos National Laboratory 1994 Distinguished Performance Award and 1999 Pollution Prevention Award for his research on Pu purification, and the American Ceramic Societies’ 1992-1993 Nuclear Division Best Paper Award, and 1997 Robert L. Coble Award for Young Scholars. He received the best teacher award, or Triple Point Award, from the University of Florida College of Engineering in 2004-2005, and was named Professor of the Year by Boise State University’s College of Engineering in 2008. Dr. Butt is a member of the American Ceramic Society, the Materials Research Society, and the American Nuclear Society. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, and is serving on the National Academy of Engineering ROCSE committee.