- Role
- Finalist
- Region
- Simcoe County
- Pronouns
- she/her/hers
Anne Bowman
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Project
The Road to a Greener Future: Using Graphene to Increase the Thermal Conductivity of Concrete
Project #7107
In Canada, we use a lot of salt on our roadways to melt ice and snow, but it is very harmful to the environment. My idea is to eliminate the practice of using salt and instead create a heated roadway that can melt the snow and ice on top. Heat, generated from a renewable source like solar, would be be conducted into the road and through the concrete and melt everything on top. However, concrete is not very conductive on its own and won't move heat efficiently for this purpose. I am experimenting with graphene, a one atomic layer thick material made of carbon. Graphene has a very high thermal conductivity because of its molecular structure, and if added to concrete, it could allow heat to be moved through roadways more efficiently, creating a more eco friendly strategy for winter maintenance.
- Challenge
- Environment and Climate Change
- Category
- Junior
- Type
- Innovation