Michelle Calabrese wins DOE Early Career Research Program Award

Associate Professor Michelle Calabrese has been selected to receive a DOE Early Career Research Program Award to support her proposal, “Examining Field-Altered Solvation for Contaminant Capture and Critical Element Recovery.” The award, granted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, provides five years of funding to outstanding early career researchers pursuing fundamental research in the physical sciences.

Simplified abstract for “Examining Field-Altered Solvation for Contaminant Capture and Critical Element Recovery”

Capture of dilute, high value targets such as rare earth elements (REEs) and fluorinated contaminants from aqueous streams is a critical challenge in separation science. Our group has recently shown that treating complex aqueous mixtures with magnetic fields is a promising strategy for controlling solute aggregation and solubility. As the underlying molecular mechanism is unknown, this project will determine how magnetic fields alter the solvation and aggregation of REEs and fluorinated contaminants in complex streams. We will then exploit this B-field control to modulate separation efficiency and reproducibility.

The DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program supports outstanding early career scientists at universities, national laboratories, and Office of Science user facilities. The program will support over 80 early career researchers for five years at U.S. academic institutions, DOE national laboratories, and Office of Science user facilities. Awards to institutions of higher education are approximately $875,000 over five years and are competitively awarded on the basis of peer review.

Congratulations, Professor Calabrese! Read the full abstract for the project at the Department of Energy’s website. Learn more about Professor Calabrese's research at her research group’s website.