NSEF Webinar

Using Catalytic Nanoparticles to Clean Water

Michael S. Wong, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Rice University

Thursday, April 15, 3:00-4:00PM EDT

This webinar is free for NSEF members and $49.00 for non-members.  Email nano@aiche.org for your promo code.

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About this webinar:

Groundwater remediation through the catalytic breakdown of the undesired contaminants is a more effective and desirable approach than the conventional physical displacement methods of air-stripping and carbon adsorption. Palladium (Pd) catalysts are known to catalyze the hydrodechlorination of trichloroethene in water, at room temperature, and in the presence of hydrogen. We recently discovered that palladium-on-gold nanoparticles (Pd/Au NPs) can be two orders of magnitude more active than Pd supported on alumina on a per-Pd gram basis. In this talk, I will describe our work in improving the feasibility of these NP catalysts for groundwater remediation and in understanding how the gold enhances the Pd catalytic activity so dramatically.

Speaker Bio:

Michael Wong is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the Department of Chemistry, at Rice University. He received his B.S. from Caltech (1994), and M.S. (1997) and Ph.D. (2000) from MIT, all in Chemical Engineering. He did his post-doc with G. D. Stucky in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, before coming to Rice in 2001. His research program lies at the interface of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science, centered around the concept of engineered nanoparticles. His team of post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduates seeks to design and synthesize nanoparticle-based materials that address chemical engineering problems; to develop new chemical techniques to achieve these materials; and to deepen the understanding of underlying fundamental processes at the molecular level. Among other recognitions, he received an MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award, a Young Innovator Award in the Arts and Sciences by the Smithsonian Magazine, and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award from AIChE. He is Chair of the Southwest Catalysis Society and Chair of the AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum; he serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for Chemistry of Materials and is an Associate Editor for Journal of Nanomaterials.