The GAO Materials Chemistry Research Group

The graphic art shows a Word Cloud depiction of the Nano World which considers how the whole human brain creates, stores and transforms concepts of Nanochemistry, assembling concepts of the Nanomaterials Genome in new ways and to useful products. As implied by this image, the letter size in the right brain reflects the frequency of the top 200-400 words presented in this Concept article in Small. Imagine merging these words and the associative images they evoke as cerebral hemispheric specializations are integrated enabling the realization of our intuitions, inventions and innovations. Word Cloud software has been created by wordle.net © IBM Corporation and Jonathan Feinberg. The rapid development of nanomaterials science and technology nowadays calls for a multifunctional data system, namely the Nanomaterials Genome. It is designed for intelligent and convenient categorizing, organizing, sifting, sorting, and integrating pertinent information about the known nanomaterials, and utilizing this information to explore the unknown in scientifically and technologically innovative ways, ultimately to benefit society. Inspired by work on the Human Genome project, which began in 1989 together with motivation from the recent emergence of the Materials Genome project initiated in 2011 and the Nanoinformatics Roadmap 2020 instigated in 2010, we envision the development of a Nanomaterials Genome (NMG) database and possible peripherals with the most advanced data-mining tools that leverage inference engines to help create, connect and interpret patterns of nanomaterials information. The NMG would enable the realization of our intuitions, inventions and innovations to be applied to the development of next generation energy materials for solar cells, fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors and biomedical materials for diagnostics, therapeutics and imaging, organ, skin and bone replacement and repair.

Our group’s latest work on Si nanocrystals has been featured on the inside front cover of Small!

Adding a sulfur atom to allylbenzene is shown by J. Rinck, G. A. Ozin, and co-workers to boost the photoluminescence quantum yield of colloidal dispersions of silicon nanocrystals capped with allylphenylsulfide. On page 335, it allows investigation of their oxidative stability as a function of size and duration of exposure to air. The illustration depicts the allyphenylsulfide capping groups on the surface of the silicon nanocrystals, and the reaction of the nanocrystals with O2 and H2O molecules in air, forming surface silicon oxide and silicon hydroxide groups.

Professor Ozin discusses the elite journal publishing landscape and the emergence of Advanced Science in his latest opinion piece.

The full essay can be found here

Prof. Ozin and art-science collaborator Todd Siler discuss the progress of their joint project ArtNano Innovations in the following video

A lecture delivered by Prof. Ozin at the ZKM Congress on Resource Efficiency has been included as part of a video of the whole event. Titled “Billions to Billionths”, the abstract is given here:

We are living in a world where billions of people are willfully combusting billions of tons of legacy fossil fuels in which billions of dollars of their pension funds have been invested, resulting in billions of tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emitted into our atmosphere. This is anticipated to create billions of climate change refugees and billions of dollars in cost estimated from its irreversible consequences. These include, global-scale devastation of cities, homes and infrastructure and environmental dangers to human health, which will ensue as a consequence of extreme weather, melting of the ice caps and associated release of trapped permafrost gases, massive flooding, ozone depletion, food-shortages and proliferation of infectious diseases. While the majority of climate scientists believe carbon dioxide greenhouse gas driven climate change is irreversible and the only way forward is for governments to adapt to vulnerabilities and risks, the question is whether a ‘silver bullet’ scientific solution can be found to the fossil fuel climate change conundrum before the human race is faced with what is envisioned to be a global disaster of biblical proportions. In this lecture I will explain that the answer to this billion dollar question is to be found at the scale of billionths of a meter in the emerging field of energy nanomaterials that I believe will power a new CO2 global economy, producing fuels and chemicals, a stable climate and a sustainable and green energy future.

The full video can be found here

Two advances towards the vision of the “solar fuels refinery” of the future are portrayed in the front cover art that encapsulates the essence of two papers published in the new elite Wiley-VCH journal Advanced Science entitled “The Rational Design of a Single-Component Photocatalyst for Gas-Phase CO2 Reduction Using Both UV and Visible Light” published by Laura B. Hoch, Thomas E. Wood, Paul G. O’Brien, Kristine Liao, Laura M. Reyes, Charles A. Mims and Geoffrey A. Ozin, in Advanced Science 2014, 1: Article first published online: 29 DEC 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/advs.201470001 and “Photomethanation of Gaseous CO2 over Ru/Silicon Nanowire Catalysts with Visible and Near-Infrared Photons” by Paul G. O’Brien, Amit Sandhel, Thomas E. Wood, Abdinoor A. Jelle, Laura B. Hoch, Doug D. Perovic, Charles A. Mims and Geoffrey A. Ozin, in Advanced Science, 2014, 1: Article first published online: 25 NOV 2014 | DOI: 10.1002/advs.201400001. The cover art, courtesy of Chenxi Qian, illustrates the concept of how “black holes” for photons, phonons, excitons and molecules, in two new classes of nanostructure, allow light-assisted, gas-phase heterogeneous catalytic CO2 reduction to CO or CH4. The ultimate goal of this research is to facilitate an energy transition from today’s unsustainable “fossil fuel economy” of burn-and-adapt to greenhouse gas climate change to a new and sustainable “carbon dioxide economy”, where greenhouse gas emissions are utilized as a chemical feed stock rather than being treated as a waste product.

Congratulations to the Solar Fuels team on the December 2014 publication in Advanced Science of their manuscript which reports the light-assisted, gas-phase reverse water gas shift reaction. In this work we have experimentally identified the key attributes of hydroxide groups and oxygen vacancies in non-stoichiometric indium oxide nanoparticles, In2O3-x(OH)y, that function in concert to facilitate the hydrogenation of CO2 to CO under simulated solar irradiation. This advance provides insight towards the rational design and optimization of single-component gas-phase CO2 reduction photocatalysts for solar fuels generation.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the Solar Fuels team on the November 2014 publication in Advanced Science of their manuscript on light-assisted, gas-phase photomethanation of CO2 to CH4 at millimole per hour per gram rates. This research has also been highlighted in Materials Views .The ultimate goal of this research is to facilitate an energy transition from today’s unsustainable “fossil fuel economy” to a new and sustainable “carbon dioxide economy”.

Well Done!

Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Ludovico Cademartiri on being
recognized for his scientific accomplishments. Ludovico was the
recipient of a 2014 The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Award, which
is intended to provide research support to the most promising young
faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the
chemical and life sciences particularly to foster the invention of
methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of
research in science (http://www.beckman-foundation.com/home).

Geoff’s latest MaterialsViews NanoChannel essay addresses the impending climate catastrophes that will become more frequent if greenhouse gas emissions continue abated.

The full essay can be found here