CAREER: Research and Education of Adsorption and Desorption of Air Pollutants on Engineered Nanomaterials

“该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。”0845934D。工程纳米材料具有独特的化学和物理特性，使其具有广泛的应用前景，包括环境修复、能量转换、催化剂支持和生物医学用途。尽管有这些好处，但这些纳米材料对人类健康、安全和环境的影响还需要回答一些问题。拟议研究的主要目标是调查工程纳米材料与环境中有害空气污染物相互作用时的转化，并确定空气污染控制装置吸附和解吸与工程纳米材料相关的污染物的效率。基于定量结构-活性关系的系统研究方法和创新数学模型将被开发出来，以表征工程纳米材料对有害空气污染物的吸附和解吸。本课题主要工作如下：(1)表征C60富勒烯、单壁和多壁碳纳米管、二氧化硅等工程纳米材料对有害空气污染物的吸附；(2)考察湿度和纳米材料形态对大气中空气污染物对纳米材料吸附和解吸的影响；(3)基于定量-结构活性关系建立单组分和多组分吸附模型；(4)采用过滤和吸附系统考察污染物相关纳米材料浓度对其去除效率的影响。拟议的研究计划将是评估过滤和活性炭吸附系统效率的首批努力之一，这些系统通常用于工业中，用于去除气相中的特定工程纳米材料。本提案中描述的研究是新颖的，可能具有变革性，因为如果成功，它将导致评估有害空气污染物相关工程纳米材料对人类健康、安全和环境影响的新技术。作为德克萨斯农工大学金斯维尔分校（TAMUK）环境工程系的一名新西班牙裔教员，PI将从代表性不足的群体中招募和指导学生，并在TAMUK与国内和国际合作建立工程纳米材料大气转化的多学科研究和教育项目。

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."0845934D. RamirezEngineered nanomaterials have unique chemical and physical properties that make them desirable for widespread applications including environmental remediation, energy conversion, catalyst support and biomedical use. Despite their benefits, questions need to be answered about the impacts of such nanomaterials on human health, safety and the environment. Principal objectives of the proposed research are to investigate the transformations of engineered nanomaterials as they interact with hazardous air pollutants in the environment and to determine the efficiency of air pollution control devices to adsorb and desorb pollutants associated with engineered nanomaterials. Systematic research methods and innovative mathematical models based on quantitative-structure activity relationships will be developed to characterize the adsorption and desorption of hazardous air pollutants on engineered nanomaterials. This research project consists of the following main tasks: (1) to characterize the adsorption of hazardous air pollutants on engineered nanomaterials including C60 fullerenes, single- and multi- wall carbon nanotubes, and silica; (2) to examine the effect of humidity and nanomaterial morphology on the atmospheric adsorption and desorption of air pollutants on nanomaterials; (3) to model single- and multi-component sorption based on quantitative-structure activity relationships; and (4) examine the effect of concentration of pollutant associated nanomaterials on their removal efficiency using filtration and adsorption systems. The proposed research plan will be one of the first efforts to evaluate the efficiency of filtration and activated carbon adsorption systems, typically used in industry, for removing specific engineered nanomaterials in the gas phase. The research described in this proposal is novel and potentially transformative in that, if successful, it would lead to new technology for the evaluation of the impacts of hazardous air pollutant-associated engineered nanomaterials on human health, safety and the environment.As a new Hispanic faculty member in the Environmental Engineering Department at Texas A&M University at Kingsville (TAMUK), a Hispanic-serving institution, the PI will recruit and mentor students from underrepresented groups, and to establish multidisciplinary research and education programs on atmospheric transformations of engineered nanomaterials at TAMUK with national and international collaborations.