MECHANICAL ENGINEERING & MATERIALS SCIENCE 207 Benedum Hall | 3700 O’Hara Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15261
Katherine Hornbostel, PhD Assistant Professor
P: 412-383-4623 hornbostel@pitt.edu https://www.engineering.pitt.edu/KatherineHornbostel/
Biography Dr. Katherine Hornbostel is a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, where she joined in January 2018. Dr. Hornbostel is affiliated with both the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Energy and with the Center for Energy. She received her BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Dr. Hornbostel then received her PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2016. Her PhD thesis topic was electrochemical modeling of solid oxide fuel cells coupled with coal gasification. Dr. Hornbostel was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2016-2017, where she developed a model for power plant carbon capture in solvent capsules.
Current Research Projects Dr. Hornbostel is currently working on the following research projects:
Research Expertise Dr. Hornbostel’s research expertise is modeling mass transport and reaction kinetics for energy systems. She is known for multi-scale modeling that resolves detailed reaction pathways and also system-level design. For example, her PhD thesis involved modeling the detailed electrochemical pathways in a fuel cell along with the system design of coupling a fuel cell to a gasifier. Similarly, her postdoc work involved modeling the transport and reaction of CO2 in a tiny capsule along with modeling a power plant-scale absorber filled with capsules. Dr. Hornbostel plans to apply a similar multi-scale modeling approach to future research projects on energy systems. DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE
Redesigning an artificial lung device for membrane carbon capture. With Dr. William Federspiel from Pitt BioE. Pursuing funding from the DOE NETL Carbon Capture program.
Developing capsules that extract carbon dioxide from the ocean. With Dr. Tagbo Niepa from Pitt ChemE. Pursuing funding from the NSF CBET Transport Phenomena program.
3D-printed metal-organicframeworks for carbon capture. With Dr. Nathaniel Rosi from Pitt Chemistry. Currently funded by the Office of Research.
Designing a piezoelectric device that captures energy from a hurricane wave. With Dr. Max Stephens from Pitt CEE. Currently funded by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.
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