Developing Student Leadership Opportunities through Mentoring

Graduate assistants fulfill many roles and functions within the university setting. The partnership formed with supervisors is critical for mutual development and implementation of programs, building professionalism and student confidence. Supervisors provide many opportunities through coaching, sponsoring and connector roles. Intentional collaboration maximizes best practices supporting graduate student leadership development

Shaping the Future of Fuel: Monolithic Metal-Organic Frameworks for High-Density Gas Storage.

The environmental benefits of cleaner, gaseous fuels such as natural gas and hydrogen are widely reported. Yet, practical usage of these fuels is inhibited by current gas storage technology. Here, we discuss the wide-ranging potential of gas-fuels to revolutionize the energy sector and introduce the limitations of current storage technology that prevent this transition from taking place. The practical capabilities of adsorptive gas storage using porous, crystalline metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are examined with regard to recent benchmark results and ultimate storage targets in this field. In particular, the industrial limitations of typically powdered MOFs are discussed while recent breakthroughs in MOF processing are highlighted. We offer our perspective on the future of practical, rather than purely academic, MOF developments in the increasingly critical field of environmental fuel storage

Preparation of bifunctional Au-Pd/TiO 2 catalysts and research on methanol liquid phase one-step oxidation to methyl formate

A series of Au-Pd/TiO2 bifunctional catalysts with different Au, Pd loading percents have been prepared by sol-immobilization method. The related XRD, HR-TEM and XPS characterizations have been tested for understanding the structure of catalysts. The catalysis activity for methanol liquid phase one-step oxidation to methyl formate have been studied in batch reactor. The results show that the nanoparticles are highly dispersed on TiO2 with 6.4nm mean size. Also, bifunctional catalysts could catalysis transfer methanol to methyl formate with high efficiency. With 1wt%Au-1wt%Pd/TiO2 catalysts, when the molar ratio between active components and methanol is 1/2000, the conversion of methanol is 55.7% for 4h under 100oC and 25 bar. At the same time, the selectivity of methyl formate is up to 74.2%. The Au-Pd/TiO2 bifunctional catalysts also shows great stability for the reaction with stable conversion and selectivity after 5 cycle

Research data supporting "Sol-Gel Synthesis of Robust Metal-Organic Frameworks for Nanoparticle Encapsulation"

Experimental data supporting the Full Paper "Sol-Gel Synthesis of Robust Metal-Organic Frameworks for Nanoparticle Encapsulation" by Mehta et al. that is being published in Adv. Funct. Mater

Research data supporting "Sol-Gel Synthesis of Robust Metal-Organic Frameworks for Nanoparticle Encapsulation"

Experimental data supporting the Full Paper "Sol-Gel Synthesis of Robust Metal-Organic Frameworks for Nanoparticle Encapsulation" by Mehta et al. that is being published in Adv. Funct. Mater

Measurements of hyperpolarized gas properties in the lung. Part III: (3)He T(1).

Hyperpolarized (3)He spin-lattice relaxation was investigated in the guinea pig lung using spectroscopy and imaging techniques with a repetitive RF pulse series. T(1) was dominated by interactions with oxygen and was used to measure the alveolar O(2) partial pressure. In animals ventilated with a mixture of 79% (3)He and 21% O(2), T(1) dropped from 19.6 sec in vivo to 14.6 sec after cardiac arrest, reflecting the termination of the intrapulmonary gas exchange. The initial difference in oxygen concentration between inspired and alveolar air, and the temporal decay during apnea were related to functional parameters. Estimates of oxygen uptake were 29 +/- 11 mL min(-1) kg(-1) under normoxic conditions, and 9.0 +/- 2.0 mL min(-1) kg(-1) under hypoxic conditions. Cardiac output was estimated to be 400 +/- 160 mL min(-1) kg(-1). The functional residual capacity derived from spirometric magnetic resonance experiments varied with body mass between 5.4 +/- 0.3 mL and 10.7 +/- 1.1 mL. Magn Reson Med 45:421-430, 2001

How Reproducible Are Surface Areas Calculated from the BET Equation?

Porosity and surface area analysis play a prominent role in modern materials science, where their determination spans the fields of natural sciences, engineering, geology and medical research. At the heart of this sits the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory,[1] which has been a remarkably successful contribution to the field of materials science. The BET method was developed in the 1930s for open surfaces but is now the most widely used metric for the estimation of surface areas of micro- and mesoporous materials.[2] Since the BET method was first developed, there has been an explosion in the field of nanoporous materials with the discovery of synthetic zeolites,[3] nanostructured silicas,[4–6] metal-organic frameworks (MOFs),[7] and others. Despite its widespread use, the manual calculation of BET surface areas causes a significant spread in reported areas, resulting in reproducibility problems in both academia and industry. To prove this, we have brought together 60 labs with strong track records on the study of nanoporous materials. We provided eighteen already measured raw adsorption isotherms and asked these researchers to calculate the corresponding BET areas. This round-robin exercise resulted in a wide range of values for each isotherm. We demonstrate here that the reproducibility of BET area determination from identical isotherms is a largely ignored issue, raising critical concerns over the reliability of reported BET areas in micro- and mesoporous materials in the literature. To solve this major issue, we have developed a new computational approach to accurately and systematically determine the BET area of nanoporous materials. Our software, called BET Surface Identification (BETSI), expands on the well-known Rouquerol criteria and makes, for the first time, an unambiguous BET area assignment possible