A water filtration membrane that heals damage by itself!
This paper reports the first instance of a self-healing water treatment membrane that restores its water flux and particle rejection properties autonomously.
Considering solar-based disinfection technologies?
This critical review analyzes and compares the efficiency of select technologies that harness solar energy for point-of-use water disinfection, including photocatalysts, photosensitizing chromophores, UVC-light emitting diodes, and visible-to-UVC upconversion phosphors.
Ok, I am environmental engineer, but sometimes I can do other things, right?
In this study, novel multifunctional silica-based nanocapsules were synthesized to encapsulate two distinct triplet-triplet annihilation UC chromophore pairs. These nanocapsules were further conjugated with either antibodies or peptides to selectively target breast or colon cancer cells, respectively.
Harvesting red photons for electricity production
Our group developed a red-to-blue upconversion system based on triplet-triplet annihilation in a solid-state film configuration that significantly enhances the photocurrent of a model solar cell device.
Hydrogen peroxide: a vital chemical for both energy and environmental applications
This study demonstrates, for the first time in literature, in-situ photocatalytic synthesis of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) through sensitized triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion of low-energy, sub-bandgap photons.
How does TiO2 Facet affect its photocatalytic properties?
This paper reports for the first time that photoelectrochemical performance of titanium dioxide nanoparticle, the most widely used semiconductor photocatalyst in dye-sensitized solar devices, is dependent upon the binding energy of the dye as well as the crystalline structure of the facet, as opposed to surface energy alone.
I’ve been thinking about this problem for a long time…
The nature of fullerene-water interactions has been the subject of much research and debate. In this study, first-principles density functional theory was used to analyze the fundamental electronic interactions to elucidate the polarization and charge transfer between water and C60.
Further advancing microcapsules for more exotic light upconversion
This paper reports a new triplet-emulsion-based architecture for highly efficient triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion in the aqueous phase. This encapsulation system separates upconversion-emitting solvent core from the polymeric shell phase by placing an inner water phase which eliminates phosphorescence interference and chromophore loss.
Killing viruses with higher fullerenes
This paper presents the first instance of employing C70 fullerene for photocatalytic singleet oxygen production in water, through covalent immobilization onto a mesoporous silica support via nucelophilic amine addition directly to fullerene’s cage. This solid-supported C70 material rapidly inactivates MS2 bacteriophage under sunlight illumination and oxidizes various organic contaminants.
Super efficient germ-killing fullerene
This paper presents the most rapid and efficient viral inactivation reported to date for any colloidal fullerene aggregates. Tris-adducted fulleropyrrolidinium aggregates were prepared and analyzed for concentration-dependent singlet oxygen production and MS2 bacteriophage inactivation. The paper was featured as the cover of the issue.