DOE Undersecretary Richmond visits Purdue nuclear and fluid power facilities

On Friday (Jan. 19) Geri Richmond, undersecretary for science and innovation at the U.S. Department of Energy, visited Purdue University to see demonstrations on a variety of projects that would impact the future of energy use. She toured Purdue University Reactor Number One and the Maha Fluid Power Research Center, where she saw demonstration of a new DOE-funded electro-hydraulic actuation system, an energy-efficient, compact and integrated fluid power system currently powering a compact loader. Richmond also met with President Mung Chiang, Executive Vice President for Research Karen Plaut and other campus leaders.                                                

During Friday’s events, Richmond also visited with the Society of Women Engineers and congratulated Purdue’s Nien-Hwa Linda Wang, the Norman and Jane Li Professor in Chemical Engineering, one of 20 winners of the first phase of the Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize from the DOE’s Wind Energy Technologies Office. Wang and her team were awarded $75,000 for the first phase of their project, which minimizes the environmental impact of wind turbine decommissioning while efficiently recovering rare-earth elements from used magnets.