Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Elucidating The Pd Active Sites Of Bimetallic Gold-Palladium Catalysts Using Chemisorption And Titration Techniques, Andrew T. Boucher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A bimetallic nanoparticle catalyst combines two different metals on an oxide support, which can increase the selectivity towards useful products that may be too tightly bound to a monometallic catalyst. To explore the surface properties of such a system, we made a group of four PdAu bimetallic catalysts with varying gold mass loadings to compare with a parent Pd catalyst. The parent catalyst was synthesized using ion exchange, and gold was added to this parent Pd catalyst using incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) to create four bimetallic catalysts. All catalysts were characterized using H₂ and CO chemisorption in tandem with …

Advances In Cellulose Nanomaterial-Based Foams For Environmental Applications, Md Musfiqur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of metal-oxide nanoparticles adsorbents is limited to fixed-bed columns in industrial-scale water treatment applications. This limitation is commonly attributed to the tendency of nanoparticles to aggregate, the use of non-sustainable and inefficient polymeric resins as supporting materials, or a lack of adsorption capacity. Foams and aerogels derived from cellulose nanomaterials have unique characteristics, such as high porosity and low density, which enables their use in a variety of environmental applications, including water treatment. However, the overall use of cellulose nanomaterial-based foams in various environmental sectors is limited due to the high cost of production associated with time- and …

Synthesis Of Poly(Styrene-Co-Butyl Acrylate) Pickering Emulsion With Montmorillonite Nanoparticles And Its Comparison With Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate Surfactant On Affecting The Water Barrier Properties Of Coated Paper, Chidubem H. Uchefuna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Water-borne barrier dispersion coatings on paper have emerged as an alternative to extrusion coatings on paper due to improved recycling, high application speed, and other end of life attributes. Pigments are often added to improve the performance of dispersion coatings. The use of pigments to form a Pickering emulsion during the polymerization step for the production of a barrier coating on paper has not been discussed in the literature.

In this study, montmorillonite (MMT) pigment varied from 0-6 % pigment volume concentration (PVC) was used to synthesize dispersion coatings consisting of poly(styrene-co-butylacrylate) latex and compared with sodium dodecyl …

Expanding Glycomic Investigations Through Thiol-Derivatized Glycans, Robert Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

N-(2-thioethyl)-2-aminobenzamide (TEAB), a novel glycan auxiliary, was synthesized and its utility was evaluated. The auxiliary was conjugated to glycans by reductive amination with the water-stable reagent 2-picoline borane complex. Glycan products, which ranged from 1 to 7 linked hexoses, were all isolated in yields ranging from 60% to 90% after purification by reverse-phase chromatography. The novel conjugate introduces a convenient, shelf-stable thiol directly onto the desired free glycans with purification advantages and direct modification with efficient reactions through alkenes, halides, epoxides, disulfides, and carboxylates in yields of 49% to 93%. Subsequently, a thiol-selective modification of the BSA protein was used …

Influence Of Platinum Nanoparticles On Ionic Transport And Hydrogen Reactivity Of Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Thin Films, Firas Mahyob

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) is a widely used ceramic material in solid oxide fuel cells, oxygen sensors, and sensing applications due to its high ionic conductivity, chemical inertness, and thermal stability. YSZ is promising active coating for use in miniaturized harsh environment wireless surface acoustic sensors to monitor gases such as H₂. Adding catalytic Pt nanoparticles can enhance gas reactivity and lead to associated film conductivity changes.

In this work, thin films with an (8% Y₂O₃ - 92% ZrO₂) composition were deposited onto piezoelectric langasite substrates using RF magnetron sputtering in Ar:O₂ - …

Quantum Mechanical Studies Of Water Splitting Reaction With (Zno)3 Nanoclusters As Catalysts, Duwage C. Perera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the current energy crisis, H₂ production through the water-splitting reaction has drawn attention recently. In this thesis, I studied the structural (geometry) and electronic properties (vertical detachment energy and electron affinity) of ZnO monomers and dimers using density functional theory. ZnO is a metal oxide with a 3.37 eV band gap and can be a commercially cheaper photocatalyst in hydrogen (H₂) production. The B3LYP/DGDZVP2 pair was selected after investigating different pairs of exchange functionals and basis sets to study the hydration, hydrolysis, and water-splitting reaction. The singlet-triplet energy gaps of small (ZnO)_n clusters (n=1-6) of …