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Graduate Spotlight
Karina Alventosa and Tianran Liu (Photos by Frank Wojciechowski)
Two graduate students have been awarded the Maeder Graduate Fellowship in Energy and the Environment this year for innovations to improve buildings and other infrastructure. Karina Alventosa seeks to overcome technical hurdles that prevent the widespread adoption of environmentally friendly cement alternatives, and Tianran Liu aims to build a cheap and efficient solar cell that is transparent enough to be used on windows.
Concrete made from ordinary portland cement is responsible for 8% of carbon dioxide emissions globally and is the most-used material globally besides water. A graduate student in Claire White’s group, Karina Alventosa is working to improve an alternative type of cement made with metakaolin clay, a heated product of kaolin clay. Kaolin clay, traditionally used to make porcelain, is commonly available and not difficult to mine. This alternative formula cuts emissions between 50-70%, depending on the method used to make it. Alventosa’s work focuses on improving the performance of the cement in high-temperature conditions, like those experienced in intense wildfires and repercussions of other natural disasters. Alventosa is assessing the feasibility of decreasing the pH of the alkaline activator solution, set time and water usage of the concrete to make it behave more like typical concrete made of ordinary portland cement during its placement. She hopes that her research will demonstrate that new types of sustainable concrete can be developed and utilized.
Tianran Liu is a graduate student in Lynn Loo’s research group, which has recently investigated creating organic solar cells that are transparent enough to be placed over windows. Transparent cells allow the passage of visible light while harvesting enough energy to adjust window shading to help control the amount of heat and light entering a building. Liu is working to develop a similar application using solar cells based on a different material system, inorganic perovskites, a crystalline material typically made of metal halides. Because the cells Liu has created only utilize ultraviolet light to produce electricity and not visible or infrared light, the solar cells are able to maintain transparency and color neutrality, and keep the clear look of the glass on which they sit. The inorganic solar cells Liu is studying hold promise because they are cheap, easy to make, and avoid some limitations associated with the organic solar cells. This new robust system would allow for highyield production and stable operation, which makes it more commercially attractive. Liu believes his work will address some of the challenges associated with the inorganic perovskite cells, including how to increase the solar cell voltage output.
Previous Maeder Fellows –Where Are They Now?
2020-2021 academic year Suong (Su) Nguyen (chemistry) graduate student at Princeton University
2019-2020 academic year Weitao Shuai (civil and environmental engineering) postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University
2018-2019 academic year Hongshan Guo (architecture) data science specialist at BNY Mellon in New York City
2018-2019 academic year Evan Zhao (chemical and biological engineering) co-founder at Revela, a startup based in Woburn, Massachusetts
2017-2018 academic year Ching-Yao Lai (mechanical and aerospace engineering) assistant professor of geosciences at Princeton University
2016-2017 academic year Clark Chen (chemical and biological engineering) postdoctoral researcher at University of Toronto
2016-2017 academic year Ryan Edwards (civil and environmental engineering) Low carbon policy adviser at Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of
Occidental Petroleum
The graduate fellowships are supported by the PaulA. Maeder ’75 Fund for Innovation in Energy and the Environment.
