Freeze-Casting in Microgravity

David Dunand and a team of undergraduates, including Kristen Scotti, Kimberly Clinch, Felicia Teller, and Emily Northard, and MSE graduate student Amy Plunk will spend part of this summer in parabolic flights in NASA’s famous “Weightless Wonder.” Following an earlier flight series last summer, they will explore fabrication of porous titanium oxide by freeze-casting in microgravity with the goal of understanding the role of gravity during solidification of water suspensions, with application to dye-sensitized solar cells.