Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

Engineered Nanoparticles For Site-Specific Bioorthogonal Catalysis: Imaging And Therapy, Riddha Das

Doctoral Dissertations

Bioorthogonal catalysis offers a strategy for chemical transformations complementary to bioprocesses and has proven to be a powerful tool in biochemistry and medical sciences. Transition metal catalysts (TMCs) have emerged as a powerful tool to execute selective chemical transformations, however, lack of biocompatibility and stability limits their use in biological applications. Incorporation of TMCs into nanoparticle monolayers provides a versatile strategy for the generation of bioorthogonal nanocatalysts known as “nanozymes”. We have fabricated a family of nanozymes using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) as scaffolds featuring diverse chemical functional groups for controlled localization of nanozymes in biological environments, providing unique strategies for …

Nanostructured Metal Thin Films As Components Of Composite Membranes For Separations And Catalysis, Michael J. Detisch

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Novel metallic thin film composite membranes are synthesized and evaluated in this work for improved separations and catalysis capabilities. Advances in technology that allow for improved membrane performance in solvent separations are desirable for low molecular weight organic separation applications such as those in pharmaceutical industries. Additionally, the introduction of catalytic materials into membrane systems allow for optimization of complex processes in a single step. By adding a nanostructured metallic thin film to its surface, a polymer membrane may be modified to exhibit these improved properties. Using magnetron sputtering, thin metal films may be deposited on commercially available membranes to …

A Study Of Protein And Peptide-Directed Nanoparticle Synthesis For Catalytic Materials, Abdollah Mosleh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticles have received much attentions due to their unique properties that makes them suitable candidates for a broad range of applications. As the size of particles decreases, their surface area-to-volume ratio would increase which is the main cause of much attention. In addition to the size, their morphologies and compositions may also play important roles for defining unique properties. Nanoparticle synthesis include both bottom-up and top-down strategies. To control the process of inorganic nanoparticles synthesis one could follow the bottom-up approach to have atom-level control over their compositions, morphologies, phases, and sizes which is the subject of this work. Due …

Development Of A Ws2 Catalyst For Hydrogen Evolution And Improvement Via Platinum Nanoparticle Decoration, Alexander O'Brien

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In response to a growing global need to improve utilization of green energy, the concept of renewable energy storage via electrolytic hydrogen production has gained popularity in recent years. However, the prohibitive expense of the bulk platinum catalysts currently used for the hydrogen evolution reaction prevents such a concept from being widely adoptable. This research focuses on a possible alternative catalyst, nanolayer WS₂, which is capable of promoting the hydrogen evolution reaction while maintaining economic viability. Bulk WS₂ was prepared in semiconducting, nanolayer form through liquid phase exfoliation. Prepared catalyst inks consisting of this material demonstrated successful …

Spectro-Electrochemical Platforms For Dynamic Analyses Of Catalytic Cascade Systems, Nalin I. Andersen

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

The development of spectro-electrochemical platforms that facilitate the dynamic analyses of complex catalytic cascade systems was explored in this research. These systems facilitated multiple modalities of catalysts and were used as platforms for monitoring catalytic transformations quasi-in situ. The analytical platforms allowed for the characterization of intermediates and products using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The design and fabrication of these devices proved to be reproducible, made of materials that can be manipulated for multiple applications, and incorporate fluid mechanics, electrochemistry, and multimodal catalysis. Microfluidic technology offers capabilities for understanding catalytic cascade systems by providing precise dynamic control of …

A Study Of Iron-Nitrogen-Carbon Fuel Cell Catalysts: Chemistry – Nanostructure – Performance, Michael J. Workman

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Fuel cells have the potential to be a pollution-free, low-cost, and energy efficient alternative to the internal combustion engine for transportation and small-scale stationary power applications. The current state of fuel cell technology has already achieved two of these three lofty goals. The remaining barrier to wide-scale deployment is the high cost, which is primarily caused by dependence on large amounts of platinum to catalyze the energy conversion reactions. To overcome this barrier and facilitate the integration of fuel cells into mainstream applications, research into a new class of catalyst materials that do not require platinum is needed.

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