UIUC Professor to Discuss Plasma, Food Production at Kaler Lecture
Tickets for Kaler Lectures are $2 or free for the Friends of the Staerkel Planetarium
A University of Illinois professor will discuss plasma engineering and food production at the William M. Staerkel Planetarium at Parkland College in April.
Professor Mohan Sankaran will present "Fixing Nitrogen Fixation: Reinventing How to Make Ammonia and Food" on Friday, April 4 at 7 p.m., as part of the James B. Kaler Science Lecture Series. The lecture series was named for UIUC astronomer Jim Kaler, who spoke at the series each year for over 20 years.
There’s a well-accepted idea among farmers that thunder and lightning are good for their crops. This is due to the reactions in the atmosphere when lightning strikes. Commercial fertilizer is produced today by a process invented in the 1930s. About 30 years earlier, researchers explored an approach very similar to lightning.
Sankaran will discuss how recent advances in generating electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear energy have reinvigorated interest in plasmas, an electrical discharge in a gas like lightning. Plasmas can be harnessed to react to nitrogen in the atmosphere to produce ammonia, an essential chemical for making food.
Sankaran earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Los Angeles and his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology. He served as a professor at Case Western Reserve University before joining UIUC’s Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering in 2020.
The Kaler Science Lectures are filmed by Parkland College TV. After the talk, the planetarium will show Expedition Reef at 8 p.m. Admission to most planetarium shows is $8 for adults or $7 for children, Parkland students, or seniors.
Tickets for Kaler Lectures are $2 or free for the Friends of the Staerkel Planetarium. Tickets may be purchased in person or online.
For a show schedule or information about booking the dome, call 217/351-3446 or visit parkland.edu/planetarium.