Brianna Mantz is currently an undergraduate student studying Civil Engineering. She is an intern at the Rutgers Energy Institute for the summer of 2016, working with Professor Richard Riman.
1: Please briefly describe your research. My research focuses on cement. The traditional method of making cement involves reacting materials at high temperatures, using much energy. I work with raw materials to make cement using a different method, hydrothermal vapor synthesis (HVS), that requires lower temperatures and therefore uses less energy than the traditional method. The quality of the mixing of raw materials corresponds to the yield of cement obtained when using HVS. My goal this summer was to compare the different mixing strategies to determine how the different strategies affect cement yield when using HVS.
2: How did you come to be involved in this research? I am Douglass woman and signed up to be part of the STEM semester long research in which my professor paired me with another professor that was 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. After my class ended, Professor Riman was very encouraging about the continuing of my involvement in the lab over the summer.
3: Where do you see your research fitting into our energy future? 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.
