Michael Borrello
3rd Year PhD Student
4116 Etcheverry Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
BIO
Michael is a third-year PhD student in the SALT Research Group. He received his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from the City College of New York. Michael previously studied the thermal hydraulics of VHTR’s as an undergraduate research assistant. He now focuses on the development of sensors to study electrochemistry, thermodynamics, and engineering operations in molten salt environments for advanced reactors.
PROJECTS
Michael works on several projects within The SALT Research Group. He began working on the design and operation of a Natural Circulation Molten Salt Corrosion Loop, a project sponsored by ThorCon Power, and continues this work today. Michael also works on designing and characterizing a thermodynamic reference electrode (TRE) for FLiBe thanks to funding from Ultramet based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Energy, under Award Number DE-SC0021952. He also works on the NEUP Molten Salt Pump Development project, a collaboration between the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oak Ridge National Lab, Kairos Power, and Powdermet. Most recently, Michael has been working on the design and implementation of an electrochemical probe for monitoring redox potential and tritium transport in an irradiated salt loop as a part of the NEUP IRP Molten Salt Reactor Test Bed with Neutron Irradiation, a project led by MIT and with collaborations between North Carolina State University and Oak Ridge National Lab. Michael pursues projects that concern the development of instrumentation for advanced reactors in hopes of seeing these reactors provide clean energy to the world.
RECENT AWARDS and Presentations
2022 ECS Fall Poster Presentation
2022 ANS Summer Conference Presentation
2021 NEST-SMART SMR Competition
2021 NSF GRFP Honorary Mention
2020 NRC Student Scholarship
UPCOMING TALKS
2024 May 30, ECS 245th Conference
8:20 a.m., L01: Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry, Electrocatalysis, and Photoelectrochemistry General Session
PUBLICATIONS
Publications will be updated when all relevant documents are available.
ORCID Profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0285-542X