CRC: Collaborative Research: Structure-Sorption Relationships In Disordered Iron-oxyhydroxides

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Clare Grey, John Parise, Brian Phillips, Richard Reeder (Stony Brook University); James Kubicki (Pennsylvania State University); Dane Morgan (University of Wisconsin); and Daniel Strongin (Temple University) are jointly supported to study nanostructured iron oxyhydroxides. Iron oxyhydroxides represent a large class of materials with many, often metastable, phases and polymorphs ranging from crystalline and ordered goethite to nanoparticulate ferrihydrites. These environmentally ubiquitous materials play a key role in the transport of natural substances. Furthermore, they are now being used in remediation efforts to bind pollutants and toxicants such as cadmium, lead and arsenate. This collaborative team will develop and apply new experimental and computational methods for determining bulk and surface structures of these materials in order to solve (1) short- and intermediate-range bulk and surface structures; (2) determine how these change as a function of humidity and pH; (3) develop a systematic link between materials structure and properties such as sorption and reactivity; (4) design materials with optimal sorption capacities. A range of experimental and computational techniques will be used, including x-ray diffraction and pair distribution function analysis, novel NMR approaches, EXAFS, TEM, ATR-IR, AFM, ab-initio electronic structure calculations and molecular dynamics simulations. Many of the x-ray experiments will be conducted at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory.This project is funded through the Collaborative Research in Chemistry Program (CRC) and provides collaborative training and research opportunities in chemistry, geochemistry and materials science. High school students and undergraduates will be introduced to environmental chemistry and synchrotron methods at national facilities via real-time video conferencing.