Credit: Jackie Limbaugh
The 5th Annual SCI Summer Research Colloquium took place on Friday, August 9th, in Duncan Hall at Rice University.
We are pleased to announce our winners for Best Oral Presentations and Best Poster Presentations! Congratulations on your excellent presentations!
Best Presentation Award Winners for 2019 SCI Summer Research Colloquium (back row, left to right): Pratiksha Dongare (Applied Physics), Yilin Li (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), Alberto Pimpinelli (Exec Dir, SCI), Nicholas Moringo (Chemistry), Danyel Eduardo Cavazos Cavazos (Physics and Astronomy), Takuma Makihara (Physics and Astronomy), (front row, left to right): Sohee Park (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), Sueda Cetinkaya (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), Douglas Walker (Chemistry), Amanda Marciel (Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), Tania Lopez Silva (Chemistry), Sarah Hahn Hulgan (Chemistry). Not pictured are Xiaoyu Helen Lu (Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology), Benjamin Clark (Chemistry), Ali Khater (Materials Science and Nanoengineering), and Benjamin Cerjan (Electrical and Computer Engineering).
|
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.
|
|
|
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)
|
|
|
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.
|
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)