Chemical Engineering Student Wins MBTC Poster Award

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Thomas Potts, a doctoral student in the Ralph E. Martin department of chemical engineering, was awarded the Jack Buffington Student Poster Award during the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center’s Annual Advisory Board Meeting, held Nov. 5. The award is given to the student researcher who best represents the professionalism and commitment to excellence embodied by Jack Buffington, P.E., Rear Adm. (retired).

By a vote of the MBTC Advisory Board members, Potts was selected for this year’s award. His poster was based on MBTC DOT 3018, titled “The Production of Butanol Fuel from Renewable Systems Using a Membrane Assisted Fermentation System.” Potts and his co-advisers, professors Jamie Hestekin, Robert Babcock and Robert Beitle, are researching the ability to break up algae cells and convert starches into fermentable sugars, to then be converted into butanol. The results of this research promise to yield a more complete understanding of the potential for algae to be used as fuel oxygenates in addition to the already identified benefits of using algae to make biodiesel

This is center’s fourth year to present the award.