Katharine Contreras-Godfried ’22

Major

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Project Title

Engineering Microfluidic Devices to Increase the Degradation Rate of Organic Contaminants Under Flow

Presentation Link

View Katharine's Presentation

Certificate(s): Global Health and Health Policy

In this research internship, I learned about and explored the applications of microfluidics, which culminated in independent experimentation. My co-intern and I began by studying the mechanics of microfluidic systems, both to decrease fouling as well as purify water. Once we had a better understanding of the concept, we decided on the question we wanted to answer through microfluidics. We decided to create experiments wherein we removed mehtlyene blue, a salt used as a medication and dye, as this is a good substitute for volatile organic compounds in water. From there, we conducted several experiments with different geometries in an attempt to find the most efficient structure.



Internship Year

2021

Project Category

Water and the Environment

Organization(s)

Complex Fluids Group, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University

Mentor(s)

Howard Stone, Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Samantha McBride, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering