Catalyzing New International Collaboration Between Stevens Institute and Eindhoven University: Catalytic Gold and Silver Nanoparticles for Green Chemistry and Sustainability

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Commercial production of many large scale oxygen-containing commodity chemicals currently relies on multi-stage, energy inefficient processes with undesirable byproducts. The development of new green and energy efficient oxidation technologies to replace such processes is essential for sustainable chemical production. This project will catalyze a new collaboration between researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology and Eindhoven University in the Netherlands to advance the molecular-level understanding of how oxygen interacts with gold and silver nanoparticles for green chemistry and sustainability in the chemical industry. The collaboration brings together the novel experimental and computational methodologies at Stevens with unique testing capabilities at Eindhoven. The project activities will entail (a) preparation of catalytic materials with a controlled size of gold and silver nanoparticles, (b) utilization of a specially developed photonic crystal fiber with immobilized gold and silver nanoparticles for dramatically improved detection sensitivities of molecules on surfaces, (c) testing of chemical reactions and spectroscopic studies under reaction conditions, and (d) surface modeling of silver and gold nanoparticles with quantum-chemical calculations.This international project will establish the basis for the transformative development of new efficient and environmentally friendly technologies to insure sustainability of chemical production. U.S. students will spend an extended period of time at the collaborating laboratories in the Netherlands, working on closer integration between experimental and computational methods. The researchers will also be engaged in undergraduate and K-12 educational outreach programs at Stevens. For example, teaching modules on metal nanoparticles for green chemistry and sustainability will be used in a summer camp for more than 200 high school students from across the U.S.