Visiting Princeton March 8-9

I'll be visiting Princeton University next Monday to give a talk on:

Sustainable nanoscale solutions for environmental challenges

Grand environmental challenges often require fundamental approaches to the chemistry that best tackles with them. And the good things do come in small packages. Together with the low cost and accessible technologies, there is great potential for durable nanoscale solutions that can be widely applied. Arsenic removal by magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals that are made from everyday chemicals such as edible oils and rust presents not just another way but one with significant potential for the dissemination of the procedure to the end users. With the power of the open source concept, this knowledge can be improved, tested and if necessary revised. Similarly, one can develop reversible carbon dioxide (CO2) capture by using metal oxides from the refuge or junkyards. We suggest that zinc and magnesium mixed carbonates or hydrotalcites offer the most feasible and reversible sorption. Catalysis with nano materials offers significant advantage in greenhouse gas (esp. CO2 and CH4) conversion to environmentally benign chemical feedstocks.
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Elected to the advisory board of I-SWEEEP

I was elected to the advisory board of The International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering & Environment) Project Olympiad (I-SWEEEP) by the olympiad committee. The I-SWEEEP 2010 will be held between April 14 and April 19, 2010.

I-SWEEEP, the International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering, and Environment) Project Olympiad, is a groundbreaking science fair open to middle and high school students. It is the largest science fair event of its kind world-wide. I-SWEEEP is organized by the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit educational organization in Houston with a mission to establish college preparatory K-12 schools focusing on math, science, engineering, and computer technologies in an effort to provide a world-class education to public. Cosmos Foundation currently operates 19 high performing public STEM schools in Texas. Cosmos Foundation organizes this prestigious event with the support of K-12 public school systems, leaders of industry, and higher education institutions. I-SWEEEP works with local, national, and international science fair organizations to bring together the top-ranking participants and qualifying projects from these competitions. Houston will again be home to the third I-SWEEEP in April 14-19, 2010 in George R. Brown Convention Center.

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One more in Nano Letters

Jeongmin gave me the great news this morning. His paper on which I'm an author of, got accepted at Nano Letters with minor revisions. Here is the info:

"Pd-sensitized single vanadium oxide nanowires: highly-responsive hydrogen sensing based on the Mott transition", Jeong Min Baik, Myung Hwa Kim, Christopher Larson, Cafer T. Yavuz, Galen D. Stucky, Alec M. Wodtke*, and Martin Moskovits*
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Papers in Nanotechnology and Nano Letters

I'm a co-author in the following recent articles:

“Applying analytical ultracentrifugation to nanocrystal suspensions”, J. A. Jamison, K. M. Krueger, J. T. Mayo, C. T. Yavuz, J. J. Redden, V. L. Colvin*, Nanotechnology. 20, 355702-12 (2009).

“Growth of metal oxide nanowires from supercooled liquid nanodroplets”, M. H. Kim, B. Lee, S. Lee, C. Larson, J. M. Baik, C. T. Yavuz, S. Seifert, S. Vajda, R. E. Winans, M. Moskovits, G. D. Stucky, A. M. Wodtke*, Nano Lett., articles ASAP.

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Two recent articles

The following articles were out recently:

"Markedly Improved CO₂ Capture Efficiency and Stability of Gallium Substituted Hydrotalcites at Elevated Temperatures", Cafer T. Yavuz*, Brian D. Shinall, Alexei V. Iretskii*, Mark G. White, Tim Golden, Mert Atilhan, Peter C. Ford and Galen D. Stucky, Chemistry of Materials, 2009, 21 (15), 3473–3475.

"Magnetic separations: From steel plants to biotechnology", Cafer T. Yavuz, Arjun Prakash, J.T. Mayo and Vicki L. Colvin*, Chemical Engineering Science, 64 (10), 2009, 2510-2521

Please contact me if you don't have access to these journals and need a copy of the papers.

*denotes corresponding authors.
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My first grant as a PI

Early Sunday, about 3 am in the morning, I got a phone call from my dear friend Prof. Mert Atilhan that the grant we applied for was awarded. This marks my first (substantial) grant as a principal investigator (PI). It's for $1,035,382 to be exact and the duration is 3 years. Thanks Qatar Foundation!

The abstract is as follows (from here):

"The aim of this proposed work is to create high surface area solid state materials that can be precisely defined at the atomic level in order to provide a high throughput basis for the optimization of CO2 capture, conversion and co-activation with methane.
This proposed work focuses on the design, production, characterization and testing of materials that potentially have a high capability of capturing carbon dioxide from natural gas precombustion feed and post combustion effluent gases. Conversion and coactivation with methane will also be sought in the scope of this proposal. First phase of our work is to design and synthesize the candidate materials. Second phase will contain testing for carbon dioxide capture performances and catalytic co-activation with methane. The sorbent catalysts that show promise will be advanced to the third phase where pilot scale tests will take place. Following groups will be investigated:
• Mesoporous materials with compositional and structural functionality for CO2 capture, conversion and coactivation
• Hydrotalcites
• Oxime based Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF)
• High surface area inorganic carbonates, borates and iodates
Upon completion of the material synthesis, Stucky and Yavuz will also carry out full characterization of the materials prior to CO2 capture capacity determination. Samples with high affinity to CO2 capture and conversion will be analyzed in detail at the Atilhan group’s “Magnetic Suspension Sorption Device” in Qatar."

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Nano rust was on Science Channel

Discovery's Science Channel had our nano rust project covered in their "Nano water" episode along with MIT's Francesco Stellacci's nano sponges that soak up spills. Click the following link to view the video:http://science.discovery.com/videos/brink-package-nano-water.html
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