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Sustainable nanomaterials, such as cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are rod-like nanoparticles obtained by sulfuric acid hydrolysis of cellulose fibres. Several properties of CNCs, such as its availability, low cost, high mechanical strength, large number of surface functional groups, high surface area per volume and aspect-ratio have led to an increasing interest in using them for adsorption and controlled release applications. Pristine CNCs were incorporated into hydrogel beads in order to eliminate the need for centrifugation. CNCs used in these hydrogel beads were also functionalized and the adsorption and controlled release characteristics were examined. CNCs incorporated alginate hydrogel bead systems possessed attractive adsorption properties both in batch and fixed bed column adsorption systems. These hydrogel beads could be regenerated and reused if necessary. Additionally, cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) were combined with CNCs and pulp fibers to produce filtration membrane suitable for the removal or organic and metallic contaminants. These sustainable nanomaterials possess attractive characteristics for the removal of various types of contaminants in wastewater systems. In addition, these nanomaterials can be modified and functionalized for selective adsorption of heavy metals and also to decontaminate water by incorporating anti-bacterial properties to these nanomaterials.

MATERIALS FOR HUMANITY (MH 21)

Sustainable Nanomaterials in Environmental Management Systems

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MH 21 is arranged around 6 themes that focus attention on pressing needs that should be addressed to enhance the well-being of communities and provide a forum for presenting breakthrough discoveries.

technical paper

Development and implementation of novel and energy-efficient technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, particularly CO2, is a vital step towards fossil fuel-based sustainable energy. Removal of greenhouse gases from dilute emissions has been identified as one of the seven chemical separations to change the world. Additionally, the requirement for long-duration human task performance in confined spaces such as submarines, spacecraft or underground citadels has made the removal of low-concentration CO2 (< 0.5%) a critical technology. Reducing energy consumption is another promising way to reduce CO2 emissions. The energy use for separation and purification processes accounts for 40 % of the total energy use in chemical industry. Especially, high-purity ethylene (C2H4) and propylene (C3H6), two most produced chemicals, inevitably contain low concentrations of acetylene (C2H2) and propyne (C3H4) during the production. Catalytic hydrogenation and solvent absorption are two main processes for alkynes removal but with high energy consumption and low removal rate. Thus, tremendous energy savings are expected by applying advanced adsorptive separation technologies based on porous materials. The key feature of these environmentally friendly, energy-efficient separation technologies is the porous adsorbent or porous media. Hybrid ultramicroporous materials (HUMs) with electronegative anion pillars lined up within the pore channels have been illustrated as promising adsorbents for gas separation and CO2 capture. Herein, HUMs with fine-tuned pore dimensions are synthesized via mechano-assisted method and used for efficient low-concentration carbon capture and alkynes removal from olefins via strong host-guest and guest-guest interactions.

Hybrid Ultramicroporous Materials for low-concentration carbon capture and alkyne removal from olefines

Green and bio-waste represents more than 44% of urban municipal waste. Here, we explore the valorization of this waste by transforming it into composites using fungi. Indeed, fungi grow by degrading the lignocellulosic content of waste and by developing a highly interconnected network called mycelium. This mycelium is composed of chitin, cellulose, and protein, and bind the non-degraded components together. In this work, we investigate the incidence of food sources on the growth of the mycelium of two commonly used fungi, the Lingzi mushroom and the Grey Oyster mushroom. We find that foods are natural catalysts of the growth. Furthermore, we develop mixtures, or inks that can be used to 3D print such materials using an extrusion method. The composites formed from waste and mycelium are interesting for their insulation properties, mechanics, decorative, etc.

Growing mycelium-bound composite using agricultural waste

Reducing landfill waste by 30% and increasing solar energy deployment to 2 GWp (giga-watt peak) are two of the key targets in the Singapore Green Plan 2030. While seemingly mutually-exclusive, increasing solar energy deployment, if not planned and handled properly, will eventually lead to increasing landfill waste. In fact, due to the relatively long useful lifetime (>10 years) of solar cells, it was not until recently that wastes from solar cells starts to be of concerns. It was estimated that by 2030, waste from solar panels alone will reach millions of tons. On the contrary, the current recycling technologies for solar waste is still rudimentary - only precious metals such as silver and copper are economical to be recycled. This presents both environmental and economical problems because the bulk of solar cells which are made of silicon are not recycled. In this work, we recycled Silicon from solar cells into thermoelectrics. Leveraging on our expertise in thermoelectrics, we fine tuned and optimized the carrier concentration using phosphorus, and engineered low thermal conductivity via germanium doping. ZT as high as 0.4 is achieved at 800 K, which is one of the highest in silicon. Our work opens a pathway for recycling semiconductor waste into high performance functional materials for power generation and cooling applications.

Upcycling of Photovoltaics Silicon into Thermoelectrics by Turning Minority into Majority Carrier

Additive manufacturing is currently paving its way to industrial applications at high pace. While in medical applications there is already a widespread use of AM for customized solutions, the strongest innovation boost in AM is coming from aviation industry, followed by the energy sector, automotive industry, space and toolmaking industry. 
Relying on a strong academic and industrial background in advanced manufacturing technologies, Europe is a strong player in the development of AM machines, processes, materials and components. Major national and European R&D programs as well as company in-house activities have led to successful implementation of AM for functional parts made from polymers, ceramics and metals. 
The aim of this lecture is to highlight selected European AM research initiatives and their research foci, covering the different classes of materials and a wide range of AM processes. Major emphasis is placed on challenges towards industrial implementation, including quality assurance and process certification, high performance materials and structures, multi-material and multi-functional solutions, testing and characterization as well as standardization actions.


Recent Developments in Additive Manufacturing in Europe

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) QDs are fundamentally interesting because of the stronger quantum size effect with decreased lateral dimensions. 1-3 Here we demonstrate that biomineralization assisted bottomup strategy can be broadly applied for synthesizing a wide library of TMD QDs, Though this method, we found that increased sulfur defects correlated well with enhanced fluorescence and increased oxidative stress generation from MoS2 QDs, leading to cell imaging, and enhancing photodynamic effect. Further, we also developed other TMD QDs based nanoagents for photothermal assisted chemodynamic therapy of tumor and ptotoactivated antibacterial. Thus, our facile strategy shows the potential to motivate future design and optimization of many other TMDs QDs for biomedical applications.

Facile Library Construction of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide (TMD) Quantum Dots (QDs) for Biomedical Application

Rational, data-driven materials discovery has the potential to make research and development efforts far faster and cheaper. In such a paradigm, computer models trained to find patterns in massive chemical datasets would rapidly scan compositions and systematically identify attractive candidates. Here, we present several examples of our work on developing machine learning (ML) and deep learning methods capable of creating predictive models using a diverse range of materials data. As input training data, we demonstrate ML on both large computational datasets of DFT calculations, as implemented in the Open Quantum Materials Database (oqmd.org), and also experimental databases of materials properties. We construct ML models using a large and chemically diverse list of attributes, which we demonstrate can be used as an effective tool to automatically learn intuitive design rules, predict diverse properties of crystalline and amorphous materials, such as formation energy, specific volume, band gap energy, and glass-forming ability, and accelerate combinatorial searches.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Discover New Materials

no abstract, Symp Q, 8 July, 2021. 10:00 A.M.

Hologram Professor Program

As low-cost electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction applied to fuel cells and metal-air batteries, atomic-dispersed transition metal-nitrogen-carbon materials are emerging, but the genuine mechanism thereof is still arguable. Herein, by rational design and synthesis of dual-metal atomically dispersed Fe,Mn/N-C catalyst as model object, we unravel that the O2 reduction preferentially takes place on FeIII in the FeN4/C system with intermediate spin state which possesses one eg electron (t2g4eg1) readily penetrating the antibonding π-orbital of oxygen (Figure 1).[1,2] Both magnetic measurements and theoretical calculation reveal that the adjacent atomically dispersed Mn-N moieties can effectively activate the FeIII sites by both spin-state transition and electronic modulation, rendering the excellent ORR performances of Fe,Mn/N-C in both alkaline and acidic media (halfwave positionals are 0.928 V in 0.1 M KOH, and 0.804 V in 0.1 M HClO4), and good durability, which outperforms and has almost the same activity of commercial Pt/C, respectively. In addition, it presents a superior power density of 160.8 mW cm−2 and long-term durability in reversible zinc–air batteries. We believe our work will brings new insight into the oxygen reduction reaction process on the metal-nitrogen-carbon active sites, undoubtedly leading the exploration towards high effective low-cost non-precious catalysts.

Carbon-Based Electrocatalyst: Synthetic Strategies and Chemical Environmental Regulations

Chromium deposition affects the performance of La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3 (LSCF) which is widely used as a cathode material for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). [1] However, more information is required to better understand the chromium poisoning process at the microstructural level. A SOFC stack composes of several components: cathode, electrolyte, anode, and Crcontaining steels or alloys as an interconnect (Fig. 1). Chromium evaporates from steels and is transported with are stream to a cathode where it deposits, which affects the electrochemical performance of the SOFC (Fig. 2).

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