PhD candidate from IMT won award for best paper

Camilla Sommerseth, former PhD candidate at the Department of Materials Sciences and Engineering, now a scientist at SINTEF, won the Best Carbon Paper Award at the ICSOBA conference. ISCOBA – The International Committee for Study of Bauxite, Alumina & Aluminium – organized the conference in Quebec, Canada in October 2016. Sommerseth and her coauthors received …

Ferrochrome. Or: When rocks are not just rocks.

Ferrochrome is a widely used alloy of iron and chromium, essential in the stainless steel industry. We try to find a way of producing ferrochrome using natural gas instead of coal. This would give a more cost effective and environmentally friendly production process. The raw material for ferrochrome comes from chromite mines. It is possible …

PhD progress is like the weather in Norway – unpredictable

  After a long time without writing any posts, I am still here, ready for some new words. Last time I mentioned that I would say something about scientific life. I am at the same place, in the same conditions, surrounded with new scientific challenges, which currently stops me from writing my paper. I would …

The two main ways of producing silicon for solar cells

Quality versus quantity – the classical confrontation. You also find it within research on solar cell materials and the two main ways of producing silicon for solar cells, but the heart of the matter is the quest to produce a perfect crystal. Let’s be unoriginal and begin this post using the starting sentence of 99% …

Creating new energy from heat loss

Have you thought about how much energy that disappears with the hot water you shower in? Or, to turn it around, how much could be saved if we manage to collect this energy before the water goes down the drain? Energy loss In industry, there are also many processes where significant amounts of energy is …

It feels great to have access to the lab

As promised, here I am writing more about my PhD research and life in Trondheim. Finally, I have access to the lab and I have done some interesting research. I also have a better grip of what Trondheim is like. My work is focused on designing and processing thermoelectric materials (materials with free electrons or …

TV stars creating chemical reactions

Schrödingers katt (that’s Schrödinger’s cat in Norwegian!) is a popular science show that runs every Thursday in prime time (19:45–20:15) on NRK1. It has been running since 1996 and has around half a million viewers every week. This fall season, the two of us got the opportunity to feature in the show, in a series …

Super strong and deformable Aluminium

  In my PhD project, I have applied a new technology for future production of nanostructured metals. I have studied two different types of aluminium (aluminium containing magnesium and aluminium containing bismuth) with this technology. My goal was to find a suitable process for light metals having superior high strength combined with good deformability. Such …