Waste Ash Fuel Cells & Quantum Dot Solar Panels: My Life as a Chemical Engineering PhD

Megan Webster, Chemical Engineering PhD candidate, Alternative Energy

It was a long and winding road that led me to engineering, through ambitions to be a lawyer, history teacher, and a chemist until finally I settled upon chemical engineering. Throughout this path, I had a profound interest in the environment and in “green” energy, which eventually served as the guiding force that led me to a university in New York City and the pursuit of a PhD in Chemical Engineering. During my time at my university—just under two years now—I have focused my research efforts on alternative energy technologies because I believe it is a revolution that must happen within our generation.

 

 

 

                                             The glamorous life as a PhD student

                                             The glamorous life as a PhD student

For the past year, my research project has focused on using ash from combustion as a potential electrode material for fuel cells. For the non-engineers in the audience, combustion ash is a waste by-product that results when power plants incinerate material to produce energy; not everything can be incinerated and what is leftover is called ash.  If disposed of in a landfill, ash can leach into the soil. Therefore, a significant amount of research goes into finding ways to treat the ash to make it safe to dispose of and to finding useful applications for the ash.  There is significant potential for reuse of ash in terms of the metals that can be recovered from it as well as for material applications.  

My work currently focuses on turning the ash we get from the power plants into an electrode, which is a component in a battery. Thus far, we have found some very interesting results and these are scheduled to be presented at two conferences coming up in April and June.

Here is the ash that I work with in my fuel cell research.  Part of my research is to understand how the ash behaves in wet environments.

Here is the ash that I work with in my fuel cell research.  Part of my research is to understand how the ash behaves in wet environments.

Ultimately, I hope to work with solar energy technology and at the moment, I am working on a proposal with my advisors for a grant that would allow us to work on quantum dots for solar cell applications. Quantum dots are extremely small clusters of atoms that behave in very interesting ways that defy the expectations of macroscopic matter. They may be the key to increasing the current 30% efficiency limit of traditional photovoltaic solar cells.

All that is certain for now is that it will be a busy and fascinating three more years as I work toward my PhD.