Highlights

Brianna Mantz

Mantz smallBrianna Mantz is currently an undergraduate student studying Civil Engineering. She is an intern at the Rutgers Energy Institute for the summer of 2017, working with Professor Richard Riman.

1: Please briefly describe your research. A recent advancement in the cement industry, carbonate cement, uses less energy than traditional cement to be created. This is the result of the materials it uses and the lower temperatures needed for creation. The research I worked on over this summer focused on making carbonate cement using a new method, hydrothermal vapor synthesis (HVS), that uses even lower temperatures, resulting in even more energy savings. After varying raw materials, time, and pressure used, I compared the size and shape of particles after applying HVS to see how the different factors affected the product.

2: How did you come to be involved in this research? In the spring semester 2015, I signed up to be part of a STEM semester long research program through Douglass. The person in charge of the program paired students with professors that were looking for dedicated students that wanted to get involved in research.  Professor Riman kindly accepted me into his group to work with cement because he felt I would be a good fit as a civil engineering major.  Through the REI Internship last summer and this summer, and working with the group during the school year, I have been involved with the Riman Research Group for almost 2 years.

3: Where do you see your research fitting into our energy future? The REI summer internship project I worked on with the group contributes to their current goal of creating better materials and methods of cement creation to be used for a more energy efficient industry.  The cement industry currently uses around 6% of the world's energy.  In order to reduce the amount of energy used, a better method of creating cement must be implemented.  The group hopes to have HVS implemented in industry, leading to a decrease in the use of the world's energy.  Hopefully my research will help the group obtain the best yield for HVS to make the method more marketable.