Brendan Crotty: $150,000 for a Cleaner Industrial Burner

Biography

Third place, and $150,000

Society for Science lists Crotty third in the 2020 Science Talent Search, behind Lillian Petersen and Jagdeep Bhatia, with an award of $150,000. His school is given as Hickory Hill Academy Homeschool in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which is also his home town.

The full title of his entry is unusually candid about method: An Innovative Hybrid Diffusion Burner Design for NOx Reduction in High Temperature Applications Year Three of an Ongoing Study. Most prize-winning school science is presented as a discovery. This was presented as the third instalment of a programme, which is how engineering research actually proceeds.

The engineering problem

The Society describes the work as designing and building an efficient hybrid gas burner for industrial applications that operates at higher temperatures while emitting 19 per cent less nitrogen dioxide than current burners. That sentence contains the whole difficulty of combustion engineering.

Nitrogen oxides, the family of pollutants written NOx, are not produced by the fuel. They are produced by the heat: above roughly 1,300 degrees Celsius, nitrogen and oxygen already present in ordinary air begin to combine, and the hotter the flame the more of them form. Industrial processes want hotter flames, for melting, forging and firing. Regulators want less NOx, because it drives smog and acid deposition and irritates human lungs. A burner that raises temperature and cuts nitrogen dioxide at the same time is attacking the trade-off itself, usually by controlling how fuel and air mix rather than how much of each is burned.

Home-schooled, and third in the country

The listing records Hickory Hill Academy Homeschool as the school. That detail is worth pausing on, because it cuts against the competition's usual demographic story. The Science Talent Search has often been criticised as a contest won by students with access to university laboratories; a burner rig built and iterated over three years in Muskogee, Oklahoma, does not fit that description.

It also explains the shape of the project. A student without institutional bench access builds something physical, measures it, and improves it across seasons. That is a slower route to a result than a summer in a molecular biology laboratory, and the three-year framing suggests it was taken deliberately.

The 2020 field

The competition drew 1,993 entrants that year and named forty finalists, each guaranteed at least $25,000. The top ten ran: Lillian Petersen ($250,000), Jagdeep Bhatia ($175,000) for algorithms in interactive machine learning, Crotty ($150,000), then Rupert Li, Anaiah Thomas, Katherine St George, Alek Westover, Adriane Thompson, Rohan Wagh and Arjun Neervannan, with tenth place worth $40,000.

Finalists are interviewed in Washington by panels of scientists who test the surrounding field as much as the submitted work. For an engineering entry that means questions about measurement error, repeatability and whether a 19 per cent reduction holds outside the test rig, which is exactly the argument a professional reviewer would make.

What is documented, and what is not

Firm: Crotty placed third in the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search and received $150,000; he was home-schooled through Hickory Hill Academy Homeschool in Muskogee, Oklahoma; his project was a hybrid diffusion burner cutting nitrogen dioxide emissions by 19 per cent at higher operating temperatures; the entry was the third year of an ongoing study.

Not documented, in the source used here: his age or birth year, what the first two years of the study established, whether the design was patented or licensed, where he studied afterwards, and anything about him since March 2020.

Achievement Timeline

Brendan Crotty — every milestone on this page, in order.

Before 2020

Runs a multi-year study of hybrid diffRuns a multi-year study of hybrid diffusion burner design; the prize entry is year three

2020

Named one of forty finalists, chosen fNamed one of forty finalists, chosen from 1,993 entrants

Mar 2020

Takes third place and $150,000 at the Takes third place and $150,000 at the Regeneron Science Talent Search

Since 2020

No further published record found in tNo further published record found in the sources used for this page

Historical Comparison

Person	Country	Milestone	Age / Stat
Brendan Crotty	United States	Third place, 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search	—
Melissa Rey	United States	Grand prize, 2008 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge	—
Sara Volz	United States	First place, Intel Science Talent Search 2013	—
Jonah Kallenbach	United States	Second place, Intel Science Talent Search 2013	—
Victor Cai	United States	Second place, 2022 Regeneron Science Talent Search	—

What is documented — and what is not

✓ Documented

Third place and $150,000 at the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search
Home-schooled through Hickory Hill Academy Homeschool, Muskogee, Oklahoma
Burner design reported to emit 19 per cent less nitrogen dioxide at higher temperatures
The entry was year three of an ongoing study

? Unverified, disputed or wrong

Age and birth year are not stated
What years one and two of the study found is not described
No record of a patent, licence, university or career after March 2020

Questions people ask about Brendan Crotty

What did Brendan Crotty win?

Third place and $150,000 at the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search.

What did he build?

A hybrid diffusion gas burner for industrial use that operated at higher temperatures while emitting 19 per cent less nitrogen dioxide than existing burners.

Was he home-schooled?

Yes. Society for Science lists his school as Hickory Hill Academy Homeschool in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Why is nitrogen dioxide a problem?

NOx pollutants form from the nitrogen and oxygen in ordinary air when a flame is hot enough, and they contribute to smog and acid deposition. Hotter industrial flames normally mean more of them, which is the trade-off his design attacked.