Reece Goldsberry, undergraduate research assistant in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, recently received the Best Undergraduate Poster Award from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers International (NACE).
This research project was essentially focused on evaluating the corrosion protection performance of different surface-applied corrosion inhibitors for reinforced concrete applications,” Goldsberry said. “The effectiveness of these materials in providing corrosion protection to reinforcing steel bars embedded in concrete was evaluated by using standard testing methods as well as state-of-the-art electrochemical techniques.”
The project was a successful collaboration of Dr. Homero Castaneda’s research group and BASF Construction Chemicals. Castaneda is an associate professor in the department and director of the National Corrosion and Materials Reliability Center, and Goldsberry took a course he taught.
Upon completing Castaneda’s corrosion course, Goldsberry became involved with the NACE University Student Design and Applied Solutions for Corrosion competition. This competition sparked his interest in working with Castaneda’s research group regularly.
“BASF developed different chemistries that could potentially be used to prevent corrosion in reinforced concrete structures,” Goldsberry said. “Then we investigated the corrosion protection performance of these materials by using several electrochemical techniques, in combination with detailed microstructural investigations, that allowed us to propose a detailed explanation of the mechanism of corrosion protection provided by these materials.”
As a result of his recent honor, Goldsberry is excited to bring more attention to this research topic and hopes to publish his results in a well-recognized scientific journal.
“This award will have a high impact in my career by showing my experience in conducting advanced research studies and my ability to understand and communicate the results obtained from experimental measurements in such a way that it becomes attractive to other people,” Goldsberry said.