Bryant Hall ’22
Physics
Plasma Diagnostics for Plasma-assisted Catalysis
Certificate(s): Sustainable Energy
I worked with Professor Bruce Koel’s group based at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory investigating the use of plasma as a more energy-efficient process for manufacturing ammonia. The current method for synthesizing ammonia, known as the Haber-Bosch process, requires high temperatures and pressures and constitutes 1-2% of global energy consumption each year. By allowing reactions to occur in a plasma, it may be possible to create ammonia more efficiently. I primarily worked with simulations to study how these chemical reactions unfold, and which ones were the most important in reaching a high steady-state density of ammonia. I used a zero-dimensional kinetic model, which considers a provided list of chemical reactions and their rates to determine how the densities of each of the involved elements and compounds will evolve over time. The simulations were compared with experimental results from the group to confirm consistency.
2021
Innovation and a New Energy Future
Koel Research Group, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University; Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Bruce Koel, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Shota Abe, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Chemical and Biological Engineering