Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Green Chemistry: Progress And Barriers, Sarah A. Green

Michigan Tech Publications

Green chemistry can advance both the health of the environment and the primary objectives of the chemical enterprise: to understand the behavior of chemical substances and to use that knowledge to make useful substances. We expect chemical research and manufacturing to be done in a manner that preserves the health and safety of workers; green chemistry extends that expectation to encompass the health and safety of the planet. While green chemistry may currently be treated as an independent branch of research, it should, like safety, eventually become integral to all chemistry activities. While enormous progress has been made in shifting …

Environmental Fullerene Chemistry: Elucidating Critical Reaction Pathways And Resulting Products In The Aqueous Phase, Jiewei Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

As the production of fullerenes and fullerene-based materials approaches industrial scale, there are increasing interests/concerns regarding their (potential) environmental impact(s) upon release. To date, a number of critical, aqueous-based fullerene transformation pathways under environmentally relevant conditions remain poorly understood. Comprehensive, fundamental, and quantitative understanding of the potential (major) reaction pathways and resulting products of fullerene materials, particularly in aquatic systems, is now crucial for their accurate fate, transport, life cycle, risk assessment(s), and thus ultimate material sustainability.

Herein, this dissertation is focused on identifying and elucidating aqueous transformation pathways of fullerene materials, focused on C60 as a model fullerene, under …

Development Of Single And Array Electro-Chemical Sensors For Real-Time Trace Metal Analysis In Aqueous Environmental Media, Yuanyuan Yang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Detection of trace metals has great importance in environmental and biological applications. While traditional electrochemical techniques have played critical roles in this field, their usefulness is limited by temporal resolution, Hg toxicity and stability concerns. Recently, we developed a method using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) at carbon-fiber microelectrodes (CFMs) to achieve rapid measurement of metal ions with high sensitivity, selectivity, and stability. Through optimizations this method showed strengths in real-time trace metal analysis. ‬‬‬‬‬‬

‪Analytical selectivity was improved via covalent functionalization on CFMs. We employed diazonium electrochemical reduction followed by click chemistry to create robust covalent attachments. We showcased its …