{"id":775,"date":"2019-04-08T10:17:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T10:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tickle1stg.wpenginepowered.com\/mse\/?p=775"},"modified":"2023-10-26T19:48:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T19:48:39","slug":"keffer-group-computes-switchgrass-harvest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tickle.utk.edu\/mse\/keffer-group-computes-switchgrass-harvest\/","title":{"rendered":"Keffer Group Computes the Switchgrass Harvest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers who work in a computational setting don\u2019t often get to enjoy a field day. However, a group of Engineering Vols recently found a way to step away from their data screens and get up close and personal with some materials in a collaboration with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/utia.tennessee.edu\/\">UT Institute of Agriculture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mse.utk.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">MSE<\/a>\u00a0Professor David Keffer and team use computational modeling to offer complementary insight into the processing-structure-property-performance relationships of the materials in an ongoing study spearheaded by Professor David Harper at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/crc.tennessee.edu\/\">UT Center for Renewable Carbon<\/a>\u00a0within the agriculture college.<\/p>\n<p>Harper\u2019s research team seeks to develop high-value materials from renewable resources, including switchgrass and other lignin-based feedstocks. In recent years, his group has synthesized nanostructured carbon composites for use in such applications as battery anodes.<\/p>\n<p>Keffer\u2019s materials science and engineering graduate research assistants joined their ag-campus colleagues in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/utkstair.org\/clausius\/docs\/photos\/2019_0308\/text\/2019_0308.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a day of switchgrass harvesting<\/a>\u00a0to get a more tactical feel for the data.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHarvesting switchgrass was definitely a different experience from what I normally do,\u201d said Valerie Garcia-Negr\u00f3n. \u201cIt made me realize how exciting and important it is to be in the field doing hands-on activities. Working with switchgrass helped our group obtain a holistic view of the project\u2019s processing phases: harvesting plants, extracting lignin, converting lignin into carbon products, and modeling the carbon samples at the atomic- and meso-scales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dayton Kizzire (shown above with colleague Lu Yu) felt an \u201coverall completeness\u201d in the hands-on harvest in a way that doesn\u2019t always output in computational work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProtecting the environment has always been a passion of mine,\u201d said Kizzire. \u201cUsing sustainable resources to solve energy needs by growing and harvesting our own switchgrass to create high-performance battery parts has been very rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lu Yu enjoyed the outdoor activity, collaboration, and face-to-face interaction with her MSE colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is work but lots of fun,\u201d said Yu. \u201cWe told jokes, played some music, and also took funny pictures. We cut and chopped really quickly and also came across some problems with the machine. But we worked together and solve them with the help from center staff.<\/p>\n<p>The experience also served as a team building activity for the group, and a motivation to continue performing innovative research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOverall, we had lots of laughs and fun while harvesting switchgrass,\u201d said Garcia-Negr\u00f3n. \u201cAlso, I realized that my grass-cutting skills need improvement, trimming bushes at home is nothing compared to cutting switchgrass. However, with the help of Lu and Dayton, we were able to manage the work by taking turns. In the end I was impressed on how quickly we gathered the switchgrass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/utkstair.org\/clausius\/docs\/photos\/2019_0308\/text\/2019_0308.html\"><strong>See more photos from the harvest.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harper\u2019s research team seeks to develop high-value materials from renewable resources, including switchgrass and other lignin-based feedstocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[102,66,224,222,65],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","category-research","tag-david-keffer","tag-dayton-kizzire","tag-keffer-research-group","tag-lu-yu","tag-valerie-garcia-negron"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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