Our research activities are based on the catalytic systems that provide resource-saving synthetic methodologies through gold-catalyzed reactions of alkynes and alkenes. We have worked on three applications: i) an effective and straightforward...
The role of the active site tyrosine residue in the Co-C5' bond activation in the
context of adenosylcobalamin-dependent mutases has been computationally
investigated. The density functional, complete active space self-consistent field
and quantum...
The motivation to determine a viable alternative to petroleum based energy has risen in recent years due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution, and the fear of exhausting oil and natural gas reserves. Biodiesel derived from...
A novel catalyst with hydro-desulfurization and hydrogenation capabilities was tested with the aim of producing ultra-low sulfur and aromatics diesel oil. The catalytically active phase is nickel in a reduced valence state on a carrier made of zinc...
Cerium dioxide or ceria, CeO2, has been widely used in industry as catalyst for automotive exhaust controls, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) slurries, and high temperature fuel cells because of its unique metal oxide properties. This well-known...
In the present study, we report the synthesis of thermally stable mesoporous gallium oxide and novel gallium-niobium mixed oxides employing Evaporation Induced Self-Assembly (EISA), Self-Assembly Hydrothermal-Assisted (SAHA) and Self-Assembly...
In blood coagulation, the serine protease thrombin is a multifaceted enzyme that interacts with multiple proteins. Thrombin utilizes two anion binding exosites (ABE-I and II) to supplement binding to fibrinogen and to the platelet receptor GpIbα,...
This dissertation describes galvanic exchange of silver (Ag) nanostructures with PdCl42- in 1) various PdCl42- concentrations, 2) the presence of 0.1 M cetyitrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and 3) the presence of 0.1 M potassium bromide (KBr). It...
As more attention is focused toward carbon dioxide emissions into the environment, conversion of CO2 to useful chemicals can utilize the extra carbon dioxide captured from power plant stack gas, instead of sequestration. The mainstream method of...
This thesis describes 1) the kinetics of vapor phase place exchange reactions on films of gold monolayer protected clusters (Au MPCs) to alter the functionality of the Au MPCs, 2) applications of the reaction for altering chemiresistive sensing...
The separation of C02 from light gases is a very important environmental and energy issue. The state-of-the-art process for the purification of C02 uses amine adsorption, which is a complex, and costly. Membrane technology is far less expensive...
This study expands our efforts to make a new class of Pt (II) compounds analogous to cisplatin and its derivatives using sterically hindered ligands. Pt compounds in this series have been synthesized using specially designed pyridine and...
Nitrile hydratase (NHase) is a metalloenzyme that contains a non-heme iron (III)
or non-corin cobalt (III) in a non-redox active role. NHase is used as biocatalyst in the
industry for the hydrolysis of nitriles to arnides. The trivalent metal ions...
Iron oxide, Fe2O3, is a promising material for water splitting reaction using solar
energy due to its stability and optimal bandgap of 2 eV. Even the recent efforts, however,
using Fe2O3 thin film materials reported low efficiencies due to poor...
Hematite synthesized by low pressure oxygen plasma has been shown previously to exhibit promising characteristics as a photo-anode for a photoelectrochemical water splitting cell. It is cheap, stable and has a 2.1 eV bandgap and exhibits a...
This dissertation describes research focused on the synthesis, polymerization and
applications of cationic aminooxy lipids. An efficient and convenient method was
developed to stabilize liposomes using 'click chemistry'. The 'click...
This dissertation describes (1) size-dependent electrochemical oxidation/stripping of gold and silver nanoparticles (NPs), (2) alloying of copper with gold nanoparticles at underpotential deposition potentials, (3) electrochemical characterization...
Acetone--Analysis; Air quality monitoring stations
Zinc oxide (ZnO) based gas sensors with sliver ion exchanged ZSM-5 (Ag+ZSM-5) zeolite overlayer were created and tested for detection of acetone vapor in air. The ZnO and Ag+ZSM-5 films were deposisted on 400µm by 400µm platinum interdigitated...
The properties of gold nanoparticles (GNP) holds promising potential for drug delivery, diagnostics, plasmonic photothermal therapy of diseases, electronics, catalysis, and photovoltaics (Liu et al., 2006; Huang et al., 2003; Thompson, 2007;...
