Water Bros Desal has branched out with another successful American-Made Challenge on Herox. This topic is still focused on marine energy, but a shift from the desalination work we did in the Waves to Water Competition. In this competition, Landon and I partnered with Michael Dickey at NC State University, who has done some exciting work with deformable double layer electrodes. These electrodes could be the special ingredient that powers distributed embedded energy converter technologies in the future. We are excited about the prospects for the technology and the chance to work with another NC Renewable Ocean Energy Program researcher.
A crazy Fall schedule that included a fair bit of travel has me behind on posting to the website, but the Thanksgiving holiday is an appropriate time for a post about Nils Horneff. Nils joined Water Bros Desal in April as an engineering research assistant from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe, Germany. He came with a strong background in numerical modeling that we wanted to leverage to improve the rigor of our wave energy converter (WEC) modeling.
Within a couple of weeks of his arrival, we had him helping craft responses to reviewer queries on our proposal to the Department of Energy for a 4-year project to do long-duration testing of a ruggedized version of our Waves to Water design. Beyond the WEC modeling work, Nils was also great a disseminating our work through technical conferences like the Appalachian Energy Summit in Boone, NC and the University Marine Energy Research Community conference in Durham, New Hampshire. I even had him pop in as a fresh set of eyes and technical consultant on my North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program projects.
Landon and I are thankful for the technical contributions that Nils made and the friendships that developed before Nils returned to Germany in the middle of October.
Nils UMERC
Nils UMERC 2
Nils UMERC 3
Nils, Naomi, Jack, Bradley, and Mackay in the foreground. Research alums and guests in the back.
We were glad to host students and research group alumni for food and games to welcome a new crop of research assistants before Nils has to head back to Germany at the end of September. This time I actually managed to capture a few pictures and one humorous exchange over the gaming table….
Student 1: This game is purely random. Student 2: If it is random, why do the people with PhDs have most of the chips?
Nils, Naomi, Jack, Bradley, and Mackay in the foreground. Research alums and guests in the back.
Water Bros alum Hank Wolfe was back in the area for the summer and was able to drop into a design meeting to get some updates on how the Water Bros research is continuing.
I was pleased to attend this summer’s Appalachian Energy Summit in Boone, North Carolina, where Nils Horneff presented on some of the work he has done for Water Bros Desalination. Nils comes to us from KIT in Germany as part of the TE-Rex partnership with UNC Charlotte Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC).
We also had our typical end of semester gathering of students and alumni at the house for food and games, but apparently we were having a really good time as I captured zero photographs of the event.
It was good to be back in person for the 2023 North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Program research symposium in late March. I was honored to receive the 2023 Edge Award for leadership in advancing marine energy because this group has been so supportive of my research and students over the years. The award came as a surprise, so I was fortunate to have Dean Keynton and the student research from Water Bros in attendance as well my NCROEP students for the awards ceremony. CSI were great hosts as always and I’m looking forward to more research opportunities in the near future.
2023 Edge Award Presentation
Abby McConnel and Allison File from Water Bros Desal
Water Bros Desal researchers at the Coastal Studies Institute
Dr. Williams NCROEP research team: Alex White, Nic Barwell, and Kyle Stahler.
