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

许多大规模含氧商品化学品的商业化生产目前依赖于多阶段，能源效率低下的过程，并产生不良副产品。开发新的绿色和节能氧化技术来取代这些工艺对于可持续的化学品生产至关重要。该项目将促进史蒂文斯理工学院和荷兰埃因霍温大学的研究人员之间的新合作，以推进对氧如何与金和银纳米颗粒相互作用的分子水平的理解，以促进绿色化学和化学工业的可持续性。该合作将史蒂文斯的新颖实验和计算方法与埃因霍温的独特测试能力结合在一起。该项目活动将包括(a)制备具有控制大小的金和银纳米颗粒的催化材料，(b)利用特别开发的具有固定金和银纳米颗粒的光子晶体光纤，以显着提高表面分子的检测灵敏度，(c)化学反应测试和反应条件下的光谱研究，以及(d)用量子化学计算对银和金纳米颗粒进行表面建模。这一国际项目将为有效和无害环境的新技术的变革性发展奠定基础，以确保化学品生产的可持续性。美国学生将在荷兰的合作实验室度过一段较长的时间，致力于将实验和计算方法更紧密地结合起来。研究人员还将参与史蒂文斯大学的本科和K-12教育推广项目。例如，用于绿色化学和可持续发展的金属纳米颗粒教学模块将用于夏令营，来自美国各地的200多名高中生将参加夏令营

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.