Chemistry students tackle green project

CANTON — Two undergraduates at SUNY Canton will spend this school year making green slurries.

A slurry is an abrasive mixture of chemicals, used to cut and polish components for photovoltaic cells, among other things, not the tasty frozen drink its name might suggest.

The research is being funded by a $10,000 grant from BASF, a large chemical manufacturing company in Germany.

"If you want to cut the tiniest slice of something, it's very difficult to do with a knife, so we use these," said chemistry professor Nicole A. Heldt. "We're trying to use less of the environment-damaging materials. That's what our students will be doing."

The grant is a change for SUNY Canton, which has done very little research in the sciences and has only a few opportunities for students to do special projects like this with professors, according to grants coordinator Joanne M. Fassinger.

"Over the past 13 years, there's been very little chemistry research on campus," she said. "It proves we are a player in this, that we have the kind of faculty who are qualified and interested in this type of work."

Slurries consist of various chemicals suspended in a liquid, usually oil, which is expensive to dispose of and bad for the environment. Second-year SUNY Canton students in the engineering science program will work on creating a slurry that uses water instead.

"One of the main reasons I wanted to get this grant was so I could do undergraduate research," Ms. Heldt said. "I'm always happy to see students get excited about chemistry because they don't get it at first."

Green chemistry is a trend that is sweeping the nation and the north country; SUNY Potsdam had a regional chemistry conference last semester with the same theme. In her classroom, Ms. Heldt is trying to embrace it, changing which chemicals she uses for less damaging ones. Making the switch, she said, also saves the college money because it is less expensive to throw away.

The grant, and other awards like it, may open doors for the college, according to Mrs. Fassinger, proving to other grant-funding institutions that SUNY Canton's projects and proposals are worth funding. The National Science Foundation recently awarded the college nearly $600,000 to give full scholarships to 18 engineering students.

Unlike the scholarships, the research grants show students another side of education.

"When a student is able to participate in stuff like this, it just may plant a seed," she said. "It may allow them to pursue science in a different avenue than what they had originally come to school for."