Commack Student Turns Corn into Fuel

A Commack High School student is leading the charge in the race to find alternative fuel sources.  

Andrew Kim, a 10th grade student at Commach High School, won a silver medal at the International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering, and Environment Project Olympiad (ISWEEP) competition in Houston, Texas.  

ISWEEEP is an international science fair that focuses on sustainable energy solutions. Students from all over the world present their projects that pertain to three main scientific topics: energy, engineering, and environment. The program is geared to secondary students preparing to tackle global issues through engineering. Students submit their research papers and application, and finalists are chosen and invited to the competitions. This year's finalists represented 68 countries.

Kim partnered with Raymond Yin, who is an 11th grade student at Ward Melville High School. The students met three years ago at a John Hopkins summer enrichment program, and then again at Stony Brook University last summer when they decided to work together on the project.

Their project was entered in the energy category, and dealt with the "Efficient Dehydration of Ethanol by Pervaporation using Graphene Oxide Membranes." The project focused on more efficient ways to obtain ethanol as a fuel, and took second place, ranking the project in the top 30 percent among the hundreds projects in the energy category.

Kim explained the project this way:  

"The biofuels used in the US are mainly ethanol based. Ethanol is extracted from fermented corn grain, and after it is fermented, ethanol usually comes out as a very dilute form. In order to make this ethanol fit for use in biofuels, the excess water must be removed in a process called dehydration. This dehydration step tends to be the most expensive and energy dependent process. The current method for dehydration, called azeotropic dehydration, tends to be a very expensive and energy wasteful process. My project concerned itself with a more efficient process, called pervaporation. Since pervaporation is a membrane-based process, it is important to use an effective material. Graphene oxide, a chemical that has been recently used and praised as a "super material," was used due to its ability to separate water and ethanol. The results from this experiment show that graphene oxide-based membranes were much more effective than normally used pervaporation membranes. The results of this experiment could be used to help make the biofuel production process much cheaper, and hopefully, biofuels will be more commonly used as a substitute for normal gasoline."

"The whole experience was great. I was able to meet people from all over the world, from students who live 30 minutes from the fair, to students from the other side of the planet. I plan to continue working in this research area next year in a lab at Stony Brook University," Kim said.

*Story and photos by Brenda Lentsch/Commack Schools.