Materials | metal oxides, sand, phosphoric acid
Each year, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering gives its graduating students a bronze medallion of the MIT seal. These medallions are entirely prepared, cast, and finished by members of the department.
For my senior capstone project, I designed an environmentally safe, effective, and easily processable metal-phosphate binder for sand casting applications. Collaboration with Rebecca Eisenach, Madelyn Payne, and Bret Stepanek.
We serendipitously discovered that our sand binder is readily soluble in dilute phosphoric acid, a valuable property for casting complex geometries.
Scanning electron microscopy images reveal evidence of metal-phosphate bridges forming between individual sand particles.