Credit: Jackie Limbaugh
Now accepting abstracts for oral presentations (through July 8) and poster presentations (through July 26) - REGISTER ONLINE HERE: sci.rice.edu/colloquium-registration
Check this page for program updates: sci.rice.edu/colloquium
The Smalley-Curl Institute (SCI) Summer Research Colloquium began in 1986 as the RQI Colloquium, and has taken place in August of each year since then. The purpose of the SCI Summer Research Colloquium is to provide undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers working at Rice with an opportunity to present their most recent work.
Using gold nanoparticles in targeted thermal ablation of cancer cells
Houston meterologist Frank Billingsley (KPRC) announced that the procedure to eliminate his prostate cancer was deemed a success. The procedure, called "Aurolase Therapy(R)", is a nanoshell-based photothermal cancer therapy developed by Nanospectra. Dr. Naomi Halas is co-founder and scientific advisor for Nanospectra.
Read More: Houston Chronicle Lifestyle and KPRC Click2Houston
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Rice University’s Stephan Link and Christy Landes are both professors of chemistry and of electrical and computer engineering. Photo by Jeff Fitlow |
Professors Christy Landes, Stephan Link will analyze mechanisms to improve chemical reactions
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences has awarded Rice University researchers $1.1 million to study single nanoparticles and their ability to act as electrocatalysts.
The Rice laboratories of Christy Landes and Stephan Link, both professors of chemistry and of electrical and computer engineering, received the three-year renewal of an earlier grant to develop and use single-particle spectroscopy techniques to understand how nanoparticles can be improved for use as electrocatalysts that facilitate chemical reactions.
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Rice-led NEWT Center develops energy-saving tech to remove contaminants from wastewater, drinking water
A polymer mat developed at Rice University has the ability to fish biologically harmful contaminants from water through a strategy known as “bait, hook and destroy.”
Tests with wastewater showed the mat can efficiently remove targeted pollutants, in this case a pair of biologically harmful endocrine disruptors, using a fraction of the energy required by other technology. The technique can also be used to treat drinking water.
Image: The Rice University-led NEWT Center created a nanoparticle-infused polymer mat that both attracts and destroys pollutants in wastewater or drinking water. A mat, top left, is immersed in water with methylene blue as a contaminant. The contaminant is then absorbed at top right by the mat and, in the bottom images, destroyed by exposure to light. The mat is then ready for reuse. (Credit: Rice University/NEWT)
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Rice University scientists simplify process to make polymers with light-triggered nanoparticles
Rice University scientists plan to employ the power of the sun to build functional synthetic polymers using photosensitive quantum dots — microscopic semiconducting particles — as a catalyst. The luminescent dots are only a few nanometers wide, but are highly tunable for their unique optical and electronic properties. They are beginning to show up in modern displays, but lend themselves to industrial chemistry as well. The Rice lab of materials scientist Eilaf Egap focused on the latter with its demonstration of a stable and economical method to make polymers through photo-controlled atom-transfer radical polymerization. The method could replace molecular catalysts or expensive transition metals currently used to make things like methacrylates (common in plastics), styrene and block copolymers.
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Rice Assistant Professor Eilaf Egap holds a vial of quantum dots her lab is using to catalyze the creation of functional polymers. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)