Alfred University alumnus places second in prestigious thesis competition

Alfred University alumnus Lucas Greiner, who earned a master's degree in glass science engineering in spring of 2024, placed second in the prestigious Oldfield Award competition, sponsored annually by the Society of Glass Technology in recognition of students' theses and research projects.

The Oldfield Award honors excellence in students' undergraduate project theses and taught master's theses. It is open to students in the United Kingdom-where the Society of Glass Technology is based-and international students from around the globe.

Greiner was presented with the overall second prize. He joins recent Alfred University alumni who were among the top award recipients in the Oldfield Award competition. In 2021, Brian Topper, who earned a master's degree in materials science and engineering in December 2020, was awarded first prize. The following year, alumna Jen Hunt, who earned a master's degree in materials science and engineering in spring of 2022, took first place.

His master's thesis, titled "Water Interactions with Silicate and Phosphate Glasses: Taking Advantage of Corrosion," was partially supported through a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation-funded project at Alfred University researching ways to recycle glass. Greiner's experimental focus was the surface modification of recycled glass material for reuse in fertilizer or foam glass.

Work on recycled glass material was conducted using an active gas treatment in a furnace held above the glass transition temperature using various acidic solutions containing HCl, HNO3, and H2SO4. The purpose was to modify the recycled glass surface and bulk for various applications, such as glass foam, fertilizer, and cement. A scanning electron microscope was used to take secondary electron images, and electron dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) was used to examine the modified glasses' surface. Along with EDS, X-ray diffraction characterized the surface after treatment.

The other half of Greiner's master's degree studies focused on the development and fabrication of phosphate glasses with a focus on compositional dependance of dissolution behavior in aqueous solution. The thesis contains an in-depth review on the corrosion of both silicate and phosphate glasses in respect to a wide range of applications.

Work on phosphate glasses concentrated on rapidly dissolving glasses. Formation studies were started on binary, ternary and quaternary glasses. Static dissolution and weight loss analysis were conducted to find durability and formability of phosphate glasses. Spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used to examine glass properties and possible water content within these glasses. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) helped to quantify silica release into the melt during glass formation.

Greiner was supervised in his thesis by Doris Möncke, associate professor of glass science in Alfred University's Inamori School of Engineering. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO.