Summer Research Cements Career in Sustainability

At the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, Pocket Pizzutillo (BSMEMS ’25) had completed two six-month co-op rotations and 75 percent of his course work, amassing industry and academic experience. But something was missing: hands-on research.

Wanting to round out his education, Pizzutillo applied to the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) Undergraduate Summer Research in Sustainability program. He was paired with Pitt’s Wei Xiong, a professor he admired, and for ten weeks Pizzutillo investigated more sustainable alternatives to cobalt as a binding agent in tungsten carbide.

His project and the research experiences that followed proved invaluable. They helped Pizzutillo land a job as a process engineer at 6K Additive, a local company that sustainably transforms scrap metal into high-performance metal powders. And they prepared him to thrive at his work.

“I came to Pitt because of the co-op opportunities and because I liked how we all started as just engineers and had a year to decide on the specific field we would pursue,” said Pizzutillo, who enrolled in fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. “It was all online then, and I’d learn about the different fields during Zoom calls with department heads.”

A meeting with Associate Professor and Materials Science and Engineering Program Director Markus Chmielus piqued Pizzutillo’s interest. “Materials science was all about why things behave the way they do. I’d never thought about that, about how, for example, different types of steel behave differently.” When his first year ended, he knew the field he would pursue.

By the end of his third year, Pizzutillo had completed co-op rotations at Stratus Materials, Inc. and Timet, and he was ready for a new challenge. “I’d taken Dr. Xiong’s Materials Thermodynamics course and wanted to conduct research to balance the industry side. I’ve always been drawn to sustainability and applied to the MCSI summer research program.”

Through the program, he was paired with Xiong, associate professor and William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Pizzutillo set to work investigating binding agents that didn’t contain cobalt.

“Carbides are composites that contain hard materials, like tungsten, and they’re cemented together using a metallic binder like cobalt,” Pizzutillo said. “Cemented carbides can be used to create drill bits or tools that cut through surfaces as hard as diamonds. Most anything that functions under extremely high heat requires these carbides.”

While a highly effective binder, cobalt is carcinogenic and often unethically mined. “We were looking for a more sustainable alternative,” Pizzutillo said.

He started his project by reading the scientific literature and then began running thermodynamic simulations and calculations. After he helped narrow possible alternative materials, he got into the lab preparing the samples and viewing them under an electron microscope, characterizing them and comparing the various samples against each other and against more traditional binders. From his findings, he wrote a paper and presented his work.

The experience afforded Pizzutillo a unique window into research. “I worked with PhD and postdoctoral researchers in Dr. Xiong’s lab and got to see firsthand what investigating more sustainable solutions looks like.”

They produced five carbide binders that used iron-nickel alloys, some that included zirconium or other metals, and of those samples they focused on three. “In our initial testing, the three alternatives showed promise in producing strong tungsten carbides, but they will require more research,” Pizzutillo said. “While it’s uncertain if this research will change the industry, the experience was incredibly rewarding and reflects the promise of finding sustainable alternatives.”

Indeed, what started that summer continued into the fall as Pocket became a fixture of Xiong’s lab.

“Pocket is an excellent example of the impact of the MCSI summer internship program. He continued to work with me after the summer internship program through his senior research design project in my lab,” Xiong said. “He grew as a researcher and produced an excellent senior project.”

This past November, Pizzutillo accepted a position as a process engineer at 6K Additive. The company turns scrap metal into high-quality metal powder that can be used in 3D printing. “We take scrap metal out of the supply chain and reintroduce it as a high-quality material,” he said.

Pizzutillo added, “Research is vital to my work as an engineer, and being comfortable working independently, learning as I go, and using my hands all started with the summer program. Now I get to do that every day, for a company dedicated to sustainability.”