Current Position

Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

Education

Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame
B.S., Applied Physics and Mathematics, Indiana University-Bloomington

Research Interests

Prof. Rumbach’s expertise includes plasma physics, optics, and high voltage circuit design. He primarily studies the interaction of plasma with liquids, including the chemistry that happens when, for example, lightning strikes water, which is known to be used to treat cancer. During his graduate studies, he developed an optical diagnostic technique for detecting "solvated electrons" produced by a plasma in contact with a liquid, which yielded a well-cited publication in Nature Communications.

Key Words

Plasma, Optics, Circuit Design

Relevant Energy Publications

1. Delgado, Hernan E., Daniel T. Elg, David M. Bartels, Paul Rumbach, and David B. Go. "Chemical analysis of secondary electron emission from a water cathode at the interface with a nonthermal plasma." Langmuir 36, no. 5 (2020): 1156-1164.
2. Rumbach, Paul, Alan E. Lindsay, and David B. Go. "Turing patterns on a plasma-liquid interface." Plasma Sources Science and Technology 28, no. 10 (2019): 105014.
3. Mehta, Prateek, Patrick Barboun, Francisco A. Herrera, Jongsik Kim, Paul Rumbach, David B. Go, Jason C. Hicks, and William F. Schneider. "Overcoming ammonia synthesis scaling relations with plasma-enabled catalysis." Nature Catalysis 1, no. 4 (2018): 269-275.
4. Rumbach, Paul, Jean Pierre Clarke, and David B. Go. "Electrostatic Debye layer formed at a plasma-liquid interface." Physical Review E 95, no. 5 (2017): 053203.
5. Rumbach, Paul, Rui Xu, and David B. Go. "Electrochemical production of oxalate and formate from CO2 by solvated electrons produced using an atmospheric-pressure plasma." Journal of The Electrochemical Society 163, no. 10 (2016): F1157.

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