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Breaking Barriers

Building the Future

Research Interests

Dr. Botte pioneers transformative applications of electrocatalysis and electrochemical engineering into transformative processes and solutions to address critical sustainability challenges. Her groundbreaking work spans three key areas:

  1. Sustainable Resource Recovery: Developing innovative electrochemical processes to convert waste materials into valuable resources, including the transformation of biosolids into agricultural fertilizers and the extraction of rare earth elements from industrial byproducts.

  2. Clean Energy Systems: Advancing next-generation energy technologies through novel approaches to hydrogen production, carbon nanomaterial synthesis, and battery development. Her work enables more efficient and sustainable energy storage and conversion systems.

  3. Environmental Protection: Creating cutting-edge electrochemical solutions for water treatment, emissions reduction, and environmental monitoring, including a rapid COVID-19 detection system using saliva samples that delivers results in under two minutes.

“Electrochemistry is silent, but we can’t live without it.”

Dr. Gerri Botte

Current Projects

  • Advanced Wastewater Treatment for Removal of Ammonia and Nitrates, the Greenbox

  • Chemicals and Hydrogen Production from Biomass: Integrating Chemical and Electrochemical Routes

  • Thermal Batteries (Molten Salt Batteries)

  • Electrolysis of Solid Fuels for Hydrogen Production and Rare Earth Elements

  • Sludge Revalorization

  • Electrochemical Microbial Sensors

  • Electrochemical Sensors And Graphene Applications

Recent Publications

  • Toward Net Energy-Positive Ammonia Electrolysis: A 3,000 cm2 Bi-Polar Electrolyzer for Hydrogen Production and Ammonia Remediation

    Ozhan Gecgel, Christian E. Alvarez-Pugliese, Jose Solis, Gerardine G. Botte. "Toward net energy-positive ammonia electrolysis: A 3,000 cm2 Bi-Polar electrolyzer for hydrogen production and ammonia remediation", International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2025).

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  • Detection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Saliva Using a Nickel-Based Electrocatalyst

    Dipu Saha, Ashwin Ramanujam, Gerardine G. Botte, “Detection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Saliva Using a Nickel-Based Electrocatalyst”, ECS Sensors Plus, 3, 4, 040602 (2024).

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  • Innovative Approach to Sustainable Fertilizer Production: Leveraging Electrically Assisted Conversion of Sewage Sludge for Nutrient Recovery

    Gerardine G. Botte, Dayana Donneys-Victoria, Christian E. Alvarez-Pugliese, Jedidian Adjei, Selin Sahin, Nathan W. Wilson, Kayleigh Millerick, Amy Hardberger, Ariel L. Furst, Nicole Hu, Andrew J. Medford, “Innovative Approach to Sustainable Fertilizer Production: Leveraging Electrically Assisted Conversion of Sewage Sludge for Nutrient Recovery”, ACS Omega (in press).

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  • Novel Slow-Release Fertilizer Promotes Nitrogen Circularity while Increasing Soil Organic Carbon

    Katherine Coyle, Jedidian Adjei, Ehsan Abbasi, Princess Vargas, Lindsey Slaughter, Christian E. Alvarez-Pugliese, Gerardine G. Botte, Matthew G. Siebecker, “Novel Slow-Release Fertilizer Promotes Nitrogen Circularity while Increasing Soil Organic Carbon”, Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. (in press), (2024).

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  • Recent Advances in Ammonia Electrolysis for Sustainable Hydrogen Production

    Pravin Babar, Gerardine G. Botte, “Recent Advances in Ammonia Electrolysis for Sustainable Hydrogen Production”, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 12, 35, 13030–13047, (2024).

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  • Novel Biopolymer Pectin-Based Hydrogel Electrolytes for Sustainable Energy Storage

    Nathan W. Wilson, Gerardine G. Botte, “Novel Biopolymer Pectin-Based Hydrogel Electrolytes for Sustainable Energy Storage”, Materials Advances, (2024).

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CASFER

Dr. Botte is the Founder and Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production (CASFER).

CASFER is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC), established September 1, 2022. ERCs are the flagship of the NSF engineering division and are the largest award given by NSF consisting of $51million to address problems with significant society impact. CASFER is led by Texas Tech University (TTU) in partnership with Georgia Tech (GT), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and Florida Mechanical and Agricultural University (FAMU).

Feeding the world for generations to come

CETI-Lab

The CETI-LAB was established by Prof. Gerardine (Gerri) Botte in August of 2019 when she joined the Chemical Engineering Department at Texas Tech University as Professor and the Whitacre Department Chair in Chemical Engineering. CETI’s mission is to integrate electrochemical engineering technology and fundamentals into chemical and biochemical processes to enable secure and distributed manufacturing of chemicals and materials, process intensification, energy/air/water resiliency, technologies for deep space exploration, and biomedical devices.

Click below for the most up-to-date list of CETI-Lab personnel.