Credit: Jackie Limbaugh
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Rice University nanophotonics pioneer honored for colloid research
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has awarded Rice University nanoscientist Naomi Halas the 2019 ACS Award in Colloid Chemistry. The award, which has been given annually since 1952, includes a $5,000 prize and certificate to recognize and encourage outstanding scientific contributions to colloid research.
Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, bioengineering, physics and astronomy, and materials science and nanoengineering. She also is director of Rice’s Smalley-Curl Institute.
Halas will receive the award at the society’s 257th ACS National Meeting in Orlando in April. The prize is sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company.
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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 University students (from left) Mathieu Simeral, Pelham Keahey (Applied Physics) and Kristofer Schroder helped complete the first clinical study of BiliSpec, a low-cost, battery-powered reader designed to diagnose jaundice by immediately quantifying serum bilirubin levels from a small drop of whole blood. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) |
Clinical study validates effectiveness of device invented by Rice U. students
The first clinical study of a low-cost, hand-held jaundice detector invented by Rice University students couldn’t have come at a better time for NEST360°, an international team of scientists, doctors and global health experts preparing for a Dec. 11 competition for $100 million from the MacArthur Foundation. The money would allow the team to carry out its visionary plan to halve the number of newborn deaths in African hospitals within 10 years.
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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)