Supported metal oxides are an important class of heterogeneous catalysts active for many selective oxidation reactions including alkane oxidative dehydrogenation. Attempts to develop fundamental structure-function relationships for supported metal oxide catalysts for alkane oxidative dehydrogenation have been challenging, with many conflicting reports in literature. This has been in part due...
It is pertinent now more than ever that we find sustainable alternatives to produce chemicals. For decades, scientists and engineers have turned to biological systems to help meet societal needs in energy, medicine, materials, and moreespecially when chemical synthesis is untenable. Often, biologically-produced small molecules are insufficient for production at...
Nanostructured semiconductors exhibit promising optoelectronic properties, such as high photoluminescence quantum yield and efficient charge separation, making them attractive materials for applications including photovoltaics, LEDs, and lasers. These superior properties are often due to improved crystallinity and reduced charge separation distance compared to bulk semiconductors. As a result, it is...
Biology is entering the exciting world of big data. Modern high-throughput experimental techniques often produce large datasets that aim to capture complex relationships often found in biological systems. While these larger data sets contain vast amounts of useful information, the answers are often locked behind a wall of numbers. As...
Composites of metal nanoparticles encapsulated by metal-organic frameworks (NP@MOFs) have recently emerged as intriguing heterogeneous catalysts for regioselective reactions. Sharing qualities of both zeolites and enzymes, these catalysts employ the pore system of a MOF to direct reactant access to the surface of nanoparticles. This dissertation seeks to better understand...
The phase-field crystal (PFC) model is an exciting new method for simulating crystalline materials with atomic resolution over diffusional time scales. Unfortunately, applications of the model have been severely limited by the requirement that novel free energies must be constructed for each new material of interest. This thesis describes three...
Gene regulatory networks contain multiple components including microRNAs (miRNAs) that coordinate regulation of genes to produce higher level cell functions. miRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that modulate gene expression post-transcriptionally by binding to short target motifs on mRNA transcripts to down-regulate target genes. Because miRNA regulation of genes is...
Oxidation processes play an integral role in many industries, but questions still remain regarding the mechanisms of carbon-hydrogen bond activation and oxidation in free-radical and catalyzed processes. Microkinetic modeling is a powerful tool capable of examining oxidation processes at the mechanistic level to gain understanding and guide catalyst applications. This...
Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) is a promising technology for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). However, while there has been much interest in PSA process development, the choice of adsorbent for the separation is just as important as the process configuration. Therefore, it is important to develop PSA processes in conjunction...
The use of biomass as a feedstock for fuels and chemicals has been a long-standing challenge and opportunity for the chemical and basic materials industries. In order to unlock the value of biomass, it is necessary to first deconstruct its structural polymers, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, into low molecular weight...
Mixed oxides including SiO2', 'and supported oxides on SiO2', 'comprise the majority of', 'heterogeneous catalysts employed in the chemical industry. SiO2', '-Al2O3', 'and microporous,', 'crystalline variants called zeolites have been used widely since the 1960s in petroleum', 'processing, commodity chemical production, and fine chemical synthesis [1]. SiO2', 'supported', 'TiOx catalysts...
The ability to efficiently sense and respond to molecular signals is crucial for any organism's survival. Sensitive, specific and timely, microbial sensing systems provide an excellent starting point for the engineering of single-celled organisms to detect new molecules of human interest. Towards this goal, our lab pursues the engineering of...
Computational models greatly benefit metabolic engineering efforts by helping to elucidate experimental observations and predict engineering targets for improved cellular performance. Additionally, supplementing experimental efforts with computational modeling can reduce the loss of time and resources in the lab by narrowing down testing conditions. In optimal cases, computational models can...
The rational and deliberate assembly of functional materials from nanoscale building blocks requires a fundamental understanding of interactions between individual components as well as their collective behavior. This thesis investigates the hierarchical organization of nanoparticles using DNA into well-defined three-dimensional materials on the micrometer and millimeter length scales. This assembly...
Metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce useful compounds from renewable substrates is a promising means for sustainable, on-demand production of chemicals. However, efforts to design and engineer microbial cell factories are constrained by costly and slow “build” times in which each genetic variation requires re-engineering a new strain for each...
Lewis acids are an important class of catalysts for chemical synthesis and manufacturing. Tris-(pentafluorophenyl)borane (FAB) catalyst has been discovered as an excellent Lewis acid catalyst for a great variety of reactions in organic and organometallic chemistry, particularly for alkoxylation reactions which is relevant to the industrial production of polyether alcohols....
MoS2 is a ubiquitous catalyst for hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis reactions for hydrotreating of petroleum sources for the removal of sulfur and nitrogen containing compounds. Through exploration of this activity, structural models for MoS2 as a series of stacked S-Mo-S platelets held together by Van der Waals forces has been developed....
Supported metal oxides are an important class of catalysts for chemical synthesis and manufacturing, particularly for selective oxidation reactions. This dissertation seeks to understand broad relationships among families of silica-supported Group 4 and 5 metal oxide catalysts for the synthesis of epoxides with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and to further extend...
Graphene and graphene oxide (GO), a highly oxidized form of graphene, are materials with incredibly interesting chemical and mechanical properties. These materials have high surface areas and electrical properties that can be tuned by reducing the amount of oxygenates on the surface. They have already demonstrated their importance in the...
Individuals commonly engage in collaborative behavior to more easily produce works of high societal impact. The effect of many individual characteristics such as age or gender on the effectiveness of a team is still unclear. Gender is especially pertinent because many professional settings are still far from gender parity, despite...