‘There’s plenty MORE TO DO’

Award-winning research projects fueled by sustainability efforts

BY TERRI FINCH HAMILTON, ’83

Matthew Quast, ’15, happily reminisces about spending late nights in the CMU chemistry lab working on a project called “Hyperbranched Perfluorinated Polymers for Fuel Cell Membranes.”

All the former science majors out there are on the edge of their seats right now. For the rest of us who recognize maybe three words in that sentence, it’s pretty cool, too. Some of the brainy work happening in Professor of Chemistry Anja Mueller’s lab is all about making our drinking water safer and our air cleaner. Two significant sustainability research projects have earned Mueller and her students several awards.

The project that kept Quast up late during four years of graduate school involves fuel cells, devices that generate electricity through an electrochemical reaction, not combustion.

Our current methods of powering things like cars aren’t great for the environment. As car motors burn gas, they emit polluting carbon dioxide. And don’t get Mueller started on how wasteful it is to burn oil: “Oil is way too good to just burn it.”

Sure, there are batteries, but they pose their own problems, she said.

“There are a lot of things you can use batteries for, but some are toxic,” Mueller said. “Then they go in the landfill if you don’t recycle them and then you have heavy metals in the water again.”

Fuel cells to the rescue.

Mueller and her students have been working on a new improved fuel cell that emits water instead of carbon dioxide, can use a cheaper hydrogen gas than the pricey extra purified gas most fuel cells require, and will last for 10 years instead of the typical five years because no acid is involved in the process.

‘CMU is where I took the training wheels off’

Quast did his doctoral dissertation on the innovative research. He’s still pretty geeked about it and continues to work in sustainability as an engineer for Henkel Corporation, assigned to help General Motors with vehicle electrification efforts. >

“I loved the practicality of this fuel cell research — it has real utility for everyday life,” Quast said. “Fossil fuels contribute to air pollution and climate change. Fuel cells are a great alternative. As the population grows, sustainable technology will be even more important.”

It was definitely important to him.

“CMU is where I took the training wheels off,” Quast said. “It was a great opportunity to grow as a scientist — four years of failing and succeeding. I’d stay in the lab until midnight. Those were good days.”

The other exciting sustainability research happening in Mueller’s lab involves improving water quality through invention of a groundbreaking filter that can remove significantly more heavy metals than current methods.

There’s complicated science stuff here involving how and why ions bond but it boils down to this: Our groundwater is full of pollutants, including toxic metals that are particularly pesky to filter out, Mueller said. Current water filtration efforts in most communities don’t do a good enough job.

She and her students have figured out a way to make ions bond in a way that they prefer to catch heavy metals. Mueller is working with CMU colleagues Itzel Marquez and Bradley Fahlman to improve the method and expand it to filter other dangerous contaminants, too.

Next up: partnering with a company to manufacture the filters on a large scale. Imagine a coffee filter but measuring about 10 square yards.

A materials chemist, Mueller loves this kind of problem-solving work. Teaching students how to research and solve critical problems along the way makes it even better.

“It’s a slow process, especially when our goal is also to teach students how to do research,” she said. “Research can be frustrating. In a lab, you have to learn patience. Things are going to go wrong — that’s part of research. But students see the reason behind it and that helps get them through the slow parts. They know the things they’re working on can improve everybody’s lives.

“There’s plenty more to do,” Mueller said. “Sustainability is something we have to work on. At this point it’s imperative. We all have to do something.”

Her students’ passion for the cause inspires her.

“I always hate when they leave,” she said. “But when they come back and they’re doing all kinds of cool stuff with their lives, it’s amazing to see.

“They’ve taken what they learned in my lab out into the world to do great things. That’s what makes it worthwhile.” •

Cross-discipline collaboration

While some students work in Anja Mueller’s chemistry lab on innovative water filters and fuel cells, others are partnering with Michigan utility company DTE on harnessing the vibration of turbines for energy.

CMU students are doing coastal wetlands research, working with the city of Mount Pleasant on wastewater issues and helping the CMU facilities management team on sustainability issues in their own campus backyard.

“Our motto is ‘We Do.’ And we really do,” said Dave Ford, Dean of the College of Science and Engineering and a big proponent of sustainability on campus.

“One of the strengths of CMU is students have a bigger voice in how to drive things than at some other places,” Ford said. “CMU gives students space to design unique collaborations in hands-on learning opportunities.

“Sustainability is so broad,” Ford said. “It’s energy, it’s materials, it’s protecting plants and wildlife. The work students are able to do in all these areas gives them something from the real world to bite into.”

He loves the cross-discipline collaboration that comes from science and engineering programs existing under one roof.

“We have biologists working with computer scientists working with environmental engineers to solve some of the biggest problems in sustainability,” Ford said. “The way we’re structured here is a real strength.”

Beyond recycling bins

Not all CMU’s sustainability efforts are as visible as the maroon recycling bins scattered around campus.

Associate Vice President of Facilities Management Jonathan Webb offers a peek at how We Do Sustainability, from behind the scenes:

• CMU is a leader nationally in composting food waste. The university won first place in 2022 in the organic waste category in the Campus Race to Zero Waste, an eight-week-long competition among colleges across the U.S. and Canada to reduce waste. CMU’s composted dining hall waste is returned to campus to fertilize landscape beds on campus.

• The university’s waste diversion rate is close to 40% — that means for every ton of waste, 800 pounds is either recycled or composted. This exceeds the governor’s goal for a Michigan waste diversion rate of 30% by 2025.

• CMU’s excess equipment and materials are sold at sales throughout the year, so it’s reused instead of going to landfills. Copper wire removed by the university electrical shop has been recycled for the past 20 years.

• We Do energy savings: CMU has replaced 1970s and 1980s-era pneumatic mechanical controls in 27 facilities across campus with new Direct Digital Controls utilizing modern, low-voltage software-based systems.

• CMU’s Central Energy Facility operates a co-generation system where the energy is used both to produce electricity, and then the heat byproduct is used to produce steam for campus heating and cooling. CMU gets two uses from the same energy source.

• The university has a longstanding partnership with Wolverine Power Marketing Corporation, a Michiganbased energy provider. CMU procures 25% of its commercially provided electricity via sustainable wind generation, exceeding State of Michigan renewable energy sustainability goals.

• Look up and you’ll see a 64-panel solar array located atop the Education and Human Services Building. This sustainable energy source uses solar energy to heat water for interior temperate controls, offsetting building demand from the campus steam utility system.

• CMU has been recognized for its sustainability efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, earning both the 2020 College and University Partner of the Year, and 2021 Sustainability Public Education Award. •

We do SUSTAINABILITY. Do you?

“My hope is that our alumni will want to support internships in environmental careers, take part in speaker series, help us build partnerships,” said Provost Nancy Mathews.

Want to donate to Central Sustainability?

Every day, some students at CMU struggle to meet their most basic needs. As many as 3,000 CMU students struggle with food insecurity. Students experiencing food insecurity drop or fail a class more frequently than their peers and are more likely to experience symptoms of depression. Without support, fewer than 20% of these students will complete their degree in five years or less.

Food to fuel student success Help CMU stamp out student hunger

Since opening its doors in fall 2018, the CMU Student Food Pantry has distributed thousands of pounds of food to hundreds of students in need.