Vanessa Witte Receives 3rd Place in AIChE Poster Competition
Vanessa Wittewas awarded3rd place in the 2015 Undergraduate Student Poster Competitionat the AIChEAnnual Meetingin Salt Lake City last week. Her poster was titled, “Hydrogen Fuel Production Using Reactive Metal Oxides in a Solar Thermal Water Splitting (STWS) Cycle.”
A researcher in the Weimer group, Witte has been investigating reactive metal oxides to be used in solar thermal water splitting reactions. The metal oxides are created via spray drying and then characterized for size, surface area, composition, shape, and phase structure. The particles are cycled in a stagnation flow reactor to simulate the STWS reaction process and thus produce hydrogen. Experimental results show spray drying produces particles that are small, spherical, and highly reactive.
Witte alsowon 1st place at the DLA poster presentationslast spring for her work in the same area.