DAAD Scholarship Recipient

Melisa Bilgili, a junior in NJIT's Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, won a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship under the DAAD Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) program. 2,358 North American, British and Irish students applied for 320 scholarships.

She spent three months at the Institut für Energie und Material-Prozesse—Reaktive Fluide at The University of Duisburg-Essen in Professor Hartmut Wiggers' research group. Under the supervision of Ph.D. candidates Moritz Loewenich and Alexander Eitner, she carried out a project titled “Synthesis of Silicon Nitride Nanoparticles for Lithium-Ion Batteries in a Hot-Wall Reactor.” She participated in operation and maintenance of the reactor to synthesize more than 45 samples with different process parameters. She investigated process-property correlations with elemental analysis to check nitrogen content and transmission electron microscopy to understand the morphology of the samples, where she utilized these images to perform a particle size distribution analysis.

By analyzing the X-ray diffraction plots, she identified and quantified crystalline phases. She interpreted Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy plots to confirm the chemistry and what bonds are in the particles. She also assembled cells and investigated battery performance via coulombic efficiency, discharge capacity and differential capacity plots, aiming for stability and long lifetime.

At the RISE internship conference, she was one of the six engineering majors who presented and at the end of the program gave a 30-minute presentation to her lab. For an upcoming conference, she is the co-author of an abstract/presentation. Through this experience, she not only enhanced her technical skills and knowledge in materials and nano engineering, but also gained invaluable insights into German culture and international collaboration.