Harrison Undergraduate Research Award

Bachelor of Science in Chemistry
Professor Charles Machan

Biography

Rising carbon emissions from industrial sources have cascading impacts on the environment, but it is challenging to mitigate climate concerns while meeting current energy demands. An attractive solution would use renewable energy to electrochemically reduce CO2 into valuable building blocks for chemicals and fuels or to produce hydrogen. Because these reactions are energy intensive, catalysts have been developed to make these processes more efficient. In an effort to improve upon known catalysts, my Harrison research project seeks to investigate a new molecular nickel complex as an electrocatalyst for these energy relevant reactions using several electrochemical, spectroscopic, and computational techniques.  

Julia Dressel is a third-year chemistry and environmental science major from Clifton, VA. She is thankful for her faculty mentor, Dr. Charles W. Machan, her graduate student mentor, Shelby Hooe, and the rest of the Machan laboratory for her great research experiences.