HIGH THROUGHPUT INORGANIC NANOMATERIALS DISCOVERY

目前的技术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，不涉及碳的元素（称为无机材料）的组合可以在电子，计算和产品中的紫外线防护以及利用太阳能等领域中具有重要用途。特别是，当无机颗粒非常小，通常由几百个原子组成（称为纳米材料）时，它们可以具有不寻常和令人兴奋的特性。由于我们无法足够快地制造这些材料，然后无法充分测试它们的性能，这类纳米材料的发现受到了很大的阻碍。拟议中的研究旨在开发一种新的，更快的方法来制造和发现可以吸收阳光的无机纳米材料（作为一种自由能源），并利用这种能量将水分解为它的成分，氢和氧（在一个过程中被称为氢）。然后，氢气可以用于为未来的汽车或设备提供动力。当我们的化石燃料（例如石油）耗尽时，这样的过程对于维持地球上人类的能量需求是重要的。

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 involving carbon (called inorganic materials) can have important uses in areas from electronics, computing and UV protection in products, to harnessing energy from the sun. In particular, when inorganic particles are very small, typically made up of a few hundred atoms (called nanomaterials), they can have unusual and exciting properties. The discovery of such nanomaterials is very much 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, faster way of making and discovering inorganic nanomaterials that can absorb sunlight (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.