Katelyn Groenhout

Katelyn Groenhout is a graduate student in chemical engineering whose work explores how interfacial electric fields promote Brønsted acid-catalyzed reactions to enable chemical transformations at substantially lower temperatures. Understanding this mechanism requires characterizing the electrostatic potential decay profile across the electrochemical double layer, which cannot be measured directly and must be resolved computationally. She develops a computational framework that numerically solves the full Poisson-Boltzmann equation to obtain potential profiles across the double layer. Using nonlinear optimization, she solves for the positions of the active site and reaction plane by comparing computed decay profiles to experimental results, achieving agreement within 10% across both acetonitrile and propylene carbonate solvents. Katelyn also constructs Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainty propagation in extracted structural parameters. As a MathWorks Fellow, Katelyn will advance the computational framework toward the Gouy-Chapman-Stern model and develop dynamic kinetic models. Her insights could support more energy-efficient acid-catalyzed processes, reducing operating temperatures and associated greenhouse gas emissions.