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For much of this summer, Marquis Scholar Matthew Root ’06 (Benton, Pa.) polished tiny aluminum electrodes with sandpaper, then dipped them in a bath of sodium chloride solution and measured the amount of electrical current produced as the salt causes the metal to corrode.
Root, a chemical engineering major and Spanish minor, was performing electrochemical noise analysis (ENA) as part of an EXCEL Scholars research project with Ricardo Bogaert-Alvarez, assistant professor of chemical engineering. The work involved leaving the electrodes in baths containing varying concentrations of sodium chloride for 24 hours, during which a computer measured current and voltage, then examining the electrodes under a microscope and measuring the pits’ density and depth.
“There’s a pretty good correlation between salt concentration and corrosion,” Root says, adding that it was harder to determine the level of pitting from the amount of electrical current emitted.
Lafayette is a national leader in undergraduate research. The project was part of Lafayette’s EXCEL Scholars program, in which students assist faculty with research while earning a stipend. Many of the 180 students who participate each year go on to publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences.
Bogaert-Alvarez says the research was designed to determine whether it’s feasible to use ENA to measure pitting corrosion in industrial and other applications.
“His work was very reliable and very detailed,” he says.
A former researcher at Bristol-Myers Squibb and principal development engineer at Arco Chemical Company, Bogaert-Alvarez has conducted studies at Argonne National Laboratory and the Institute of Energy Conversion in Newark, Del. He has shared his research in scientific journals and at conferences in his field.
Bogaert-Alvarez has conducted corrosion research with several other chemical engineering majors, including Nathan DeLong ’04, Rebecca Geisler ’03, Jaclyn Sekula ’03, and Mike Salerno ’00.
Root says he was glad to begin research so early in his college career, with only his first year of courses behind him.
“It’s definitely good to get the research experience,” he says. “To do anything like this as an undergraduate is just great.”
Root plans to study in Madrid, Spain next spring. He participates in intramural soccer, basketball, volleyball, bowling, and backgammon.
Root’s older brother, Brian Root ’04, is also a chemical engineering major at Lafayette. Both are graduates of Benton High School.
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Over the past five years, more than 130 Lafayette students have presented results from their research with faculty mentors, or under their guidance, at the conference.