Dayton Horvath

Named University Scholar

At UConn

By Eliza Hallabeck

Newtown High School graduate Dayton Horvath was one of a number of juniors at the University of Connecticut to be named as a University Scholar recently.

“It’s a long-term project that juniors in their first semester apply for with a proposal, and over the remainder of their time at UConn,” explained Dayton, “they spend time working on research and conducting their proposed project.”

Some students use the project toward their final thesis, according to Dayton, and most complete a final paper on the project.

Dayton, a chemistry major with a minor in material science and engineering and another minor in entrepreneurship, said his proposal was to look into synthesis characterization and application of vanadia-titania photocatalists.

“My goal is to use them to degrade airborne compounds that cause asthma, bad odors, and things of that nature,” said Dayton. “They are called volatile organic compounds (VOCs).”

In his application for the award, Dayton wrote, “It is a vital part of inorganic and materials research due to the ever increasing demand for chemicals and cleaner processes throughout industry. As economic and environmental concerns grow, so does the need to convert or degrade waste products. Being a key part in the industrial revolution, heterogeneous catalysis has continued to be essential to modern-day life.”

Dayton said he wanted to work on his project because of previous work he has completed with a research group overseen by Dr Steven L. Suib at the university.

“He has a very wide range of projects, and this was just one more environmental application,” said Dayton.

Dayton said he plans to focus his work on chlorinated VOCs, which are generally more difficult to grade due to the nature of the compounds.

“The project is to improve air quality more than anything,” he said, because he is working to make a substance that just needs some light shined on to degrade the VOCs.

To complete his research, Dayton said he will be using a process Dr Suib patented roughly five to six years ago.

Some of Dayton’s past work at the school has been with a graduate student named ChunHu Chen, and later he tried to produce formaldehyde from carbon dioxide.

 Dayton said he was notified at the end of December that his proposal was chosen for the University Scholar award, and he has completed some preliminary work since.

“I’m working with three different professors who are my advisory committee,” he said.

He also said he plans to spend the spring semester, summer, and fall semester working on his project.

“Assuming things go well, I hope to have publishable data by [the spring semester],” said Dayton.

Dayton has also previously received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fund grant and was one of eight students to receive the Dean’s Award for the fall of 2010.

Reflecting on his time at UConn, Dayton said he has been lucky to have completed the research projects of which he has been a part.

“In my opinion, [Dr Suib’s Inorganic Researc%h Group] is one of the most valuable and most productive groups at UConn,” he said.

Dayton’s mother, Maria Horvath, said Dayton is in the Honors program at the university.

“He could not really find any school that would let him do research as a freshman, and UConn was the only school that basically offered for him to be part of the chemistry research program from day one, after they looked at his chemistry research,” said Maria.

Ms Horvath said her son is a high achieving student, and said she is thankful for the opportunity UConn has provided to Dayton.

“He is following his dream and had incredible teachers at Newtown High School who really went out of their way to support him, and it really was an incredible start,” she said.

During his time at NHS Dayton participated science fairs and in 2008, he was made it to the semifinals of the Intel Science Talent Search.