Check out this UConn Today article featuring our senior, Caitlin Noonan—from scraps to solutions, she’s turning campus food waste into carbon-capture material. 

Caitlin’s project, “Converting the University of Connecticut’s Food Waste into Activated Carbon for Carbon Capture, Sequestration, and Usage,” conducted under the guidance of Professor Julia Valla, explores a clever way to repurpose discarded food scraps into biochar that can trap CO₂ and be reused or returned safely to soil.

Here’s what makes her work so exciting:

• She sourced food waste from South Dining Hall, dried and powdered it using a FoodCycler Eco 5, then transformed it into biochar via slow pyrolysis.
• By steam-activating the biochar at 900 °C, she created a porous, reusable material adept at adsorbing CO₂—without relying on chemical activation methods that can generate harmful byproducts.
• Unlike conventional adsorbents, Caitlin’s biochars can ultimately be used as a soil amendment, improving soil health and storing carbon long-term with minimal environmental risk.

Caitlin is a recipient of the highly competitive Goldwater Scholarship and a Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) Award winner from the Office of Undergraduate Research at UConn, underscoring both her academic excellence and research potential. Caitlin’s work further illustrates how everyday waste can become part of the solution—and highlights the impact chemical engineers can make in sustainability and carbon removal.

Congratulations, Caitlin! We’re proud to see your outstanding achievements recognized and can’t wait to see where you take them next.

Read more on UConn Today.