Jae Won Oh, ’21, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Jae Won Oh ’21

Major

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Project Title

Synthesis of Nanosized Portlandite for Carbon Capture

Presentation Link

View Jae Won's Presentation

Certificate(s): Applications of Computing, Sustainable Energy

I researched the viability of nanosized portlandite as an efficient material for carbon capture. Portlandite, the crystalline form of calcium hydroxide, is a very accessible and well-known material already used for carbon capture, but the energy requirement for desorption (the release of captured carbon) is significant, which reduces its viability for industrial-scale implementation. Previous simulations done in the White lab have shown that a monolayer of portlandite could reduce the energy intensity of desorption. My work involved assessing the presence of nanosize crystallites in commercially available portlandite by sieving the material and running an X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. I also worked to develop a method of synthesizing nanosized portlandite crystals to further study their carbon-capture ability. By running a thermogravimetric analysis on the samples, I studied each sample’s hydration and carbonation at room temperature, as well as the rate at which desorption occurred for different sizes of portlandite. Through this internship, I reaffirmed my interest in energy and the environment while learning research skills and experimental design.