HIGH THROUGHPUT INORGANIC NANOMATERIALS DISCOVERY

当前技术的进步在很大程度上取决于新材料的发现。一段时间以来，人们已经知道，主要不含碳的元素的组合（称为无机材料）在电子、计算、产品的紫外线防护以及利用太阳能等领域都有重要的用途。特别是，当无机粒子非常小时，通常由几百个原子组成（称为纳米材料），它们变得可以具有不寻常的和令人兴奋的性质。这种纳米材料的发现在很大程度上受到阻碍，因为我们无法足够快地制造这些材料，也无法充分地测试它们的性能。提出的研究旨在开发一种使用非常快速的方法制造和发现无机纳米材料的新方法。这个项目正在寻找更好的纳米材料，它可以吸收太阳光（作为一种自由能源），并利用这种能量将水分解成氢和氧（在一个被称为光催化的过程中）。氢气可以用来为未来的汽车或设备提供动力。当我们的化石燃料（如石油）耗尽时，这样一个过程对于维持地球上人类的能源需求是重要的。

The current advancement of technology very much depends upon the discovery of new materials. It has been known for some time that combinations of elements not largely involving carbon (called inorganic materials) can have important uses in areas from electronics, computing, UV protection in products, to harnessing energy from the sun. In particular, when inorganic particles are very small, typically made of a few hundred atoms (called nanomaterials), they become can have unusual and exciting properties. The discovery of such nanomaterials very much is hampered by our inability to make these materials fast enough and then to be able to test them adequately for their properties.The proposed research seeks to develop a new way of making and discovering inorganic nanomaterials using a very fast approach. This project is seeking to discovery better nanomaterials, which can absorb the suns rays (as an free energy source), and use this energy to split water into its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen (in a process known as photocatalysis). The hydrogen can then be used for powering cars or devices of the future. Such a process is important to sustain the energy requirements of mankind on this earth when our fossil fuels (e.g. oil) are exhausted.