Altwicker This dissertation-enhancement award supports Mr. Shawn Ryan, a graduate student, in Dr. Elmar Altwicker's group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to spend three-and-a-half months in the laboratory of Dr. Ludwig Stieglitz of the Institute for Technical Chemistry at the National Research Center in Karlsruhe. While there, Mr. Ryan will make quantitative determinations of carbon-chlorine (C-Cl) bonds in various carbons. The formation of C-Cl bonds in residual carbons at certain concentrations and rates plays an important role in the formation of dioxins, which are undesirable by products of many thermal processes, including waste incineration. The work done in the German lab could aid in the development of techniques to minimize Dioxin formation in thermal processes.
