Benjamin Sailors, SEAS ’25, Bellefontaine, OH
This summer, I have been working in the Drndic Lab at Penn in the Physics Department. So far, my work in the laboratory has been focused on creating and utilizing nanopores in condensed matter materials. Essentially, these are extremely tiny holes (on the scale of 1 atom gaps to a few nanometers in diameters) through which we have created in ultra thin membranes. These membranes are known as 2D materials, since they are atomically thin, and have a wide variety of applications. Specifically, the nanopore devices we are looking at can be used for DNA transcription, as well as gas separation or water purification.
I have been focusing this summer on getting our mass spectrometer up and running so we can add a new component to our laboratory that focuses more on the fundamental gas transport and gas separation component of nanopore devices. I have spent a lot of time this summer reviewing the literature for potential project ideas, brainstorming how to create an experimental apparatus, talking with professors and staff around Penn to double-check my ideas, and beginning to prototype experiments and order parts for the final iteration. I am excited to continue this work into the next year, where I hope to begin to collect data on results for hydrogen separation through our molybdenum disulfide membranes for potential carbon capture applications.
I have learned a great deal about collaboration and scientific project creation, as it has been entirely up to me and my partner to design this project, apparatus, and experiment from scratch. Although it took a while to get our bearings, we have now hit the ground running and are excited to get our hands on some data soon! Hopefully soon, we have some incredibly interesting and applicable findings to report back.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
