Elliot Wainwright, a PhD candidate with Professor Weihs, recently won a Best Student Presentation award at the Fall MRS Meeting. He presented two talks during the Advances and Upcoming Research Strategies in Reactive Materials symposium at the conference that was held in Boston late last year. There were 3 awards given out for the over 30 student talks that took place.
Wainwright’s talks centered on understanding ignition and combustion properties of aluminum/zirconium (Al/Zr) nanocomposite powders, which are being developed to counteract anthrax and other biological warfare threats. The metal fuel powders are combined with an explosive charge that, once ignited, would burn with a high enough energy to decontaminate airborne or stored spores.
The titles of his two presentations were Tuning the Ignition Threshold of Ball-Milled Al:Zr Nanocomposite Powders Independent of Powder Size and Microexplosions and Bubble Growth Dynamics in the Dual-Phase Combustion of Al:Zr Nanocomposite Fuels.