SparkCell Technologies

Rist Campus-wide DifferenceMaker Award (Sponsored by Kim and Brian Rist ’77, Manning School of Business)

Joshua Landis, a Mechanical Engineering graduate student, explained ultra-rapid concrete analysis and how the accelerated degradation of concrete is caused mainly by salt ingestion and chloride contamination. This brittle the concrete and oxidizes the inside rebar which leads to oxide jacking which cracks the steel bar underneath the concrete. This issue causes severe structural collapse and even death. The team, SparkCell Technologies, won the Rist Campus-wide DifferenceMaker Award (Sponsored by Kim and Brian Rist ‘77, Manning School of Business) and $6,000 in funding at the 2024 DifferenceMaker $50,000 Idea Challenge.

Team SparkCell Technologies showed a demonstration of his prototype to the audience which uses high-voltage plasma to find contaminants using spectroscopy. His solution is a small testing device that can be used to detect chlorides in concrete which uses a technology called spark emission spectroscopy to detect elements when they are ionized. With the funding received from the Idea Challenge, Joshua plans to acquire standard reference material, and a dedicated detector, and develop further prototyping systems.