Research Experience for Undergraduates: Green Chemistry in Colorful Colorado

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This award from the Division of Chemistry (CHE) at the National Science Foundation supports the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at University of Colorado- Colorado Springs (UCCS). The REU Program will bring seven students to campus for ten weeks each summer to conduct Green Chemistry research. One important goal of this REU Site is to train future scientists from institutions with no research opportunities, including community colleges and four-year colleges having limited research opportunities. In this region, several of these campuses have a large percentage of underrepresented students. The theme of this project, Green Chemistry, is a field that has been developing exponentially in academic and industrial venues. This project especially features elements of atom economy, small-scale reactions and analyses, and reactions in aqueous media. Some of the scientific goals of this project include: developing novel ligands that can catalytically remediate heavy metals from soils and wastewater, detecting the presence of household chemicals, hormones, and endocrine-disrupting compounds in the environment, and developing a photocatalyst for splitting water into H2 and O2. One of the collaborative inorganic/organic/biochemistry projects uses the rapidly expanding synthetic field of azide-alkyne "click chemistry". Participating faculty members have a strong commitment to undergraduate research and aim to prepare students for the transition to graduate school and research careers. Students in this program will benefit from having experienced UCCS student and faculty researchers working alongside them in a brand-new, handicap-accessible facility especially designed for undergraduate student researchers. One goal is to create a life-long support community for REU students composed of the other REU students and faculty mentors, to help these students achieve their educational and career goals. Results of the experiments are to be made available to the scientific community-at-large on the UCCS REU web site and through publications and presentations at American Chemical Society meetings and Green Chemistry conferences.