Chung-Chiun Liu - US grants

The purpose of this work is to develop an electrochemical process to partially fluorinate aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and chlorobenzene such that the rign structure is kept intact. These fluorinated products have great value as intermediated for pesticides and in other biological applications. Fluorination of organic molecules can be accomplised by many means. The advantages of electrochemical fluorination are that it is not a harsh reaction, it can be arried out a room timperature and ambient pressure, and it utilizes inexpensive raw materials.

This award provides travel funds for young investigators, mainly graduate students, to attend the Third International Meeting on Chemical Sensors, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, September 24-26, 1990. Support will be provided for nine graduate students and five young faculty members who are beginning their academic research careers and have no other means of travel support. This grant will enable participation by these people themselves. The conference is in an area of emerging technology that will be critical to the economic competitiveness of the nation.

This NIRT proposal focuses on developing manufacturable NanoElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS) in which light-driven artificial molecular shuttles are used as the "active nanostructures." The PIs propose to (1) exploit the "bottom-up" based synthetic routes to create novel photoactive bistable rotaxane-based molecular shuttles, (2) develop multiscale computer-aided design methodologies to help design and optimize the molecular structures/properties of the molecular shuttles, (3) experimentally quantify the response time for photoactive bistable rotaxanes switching from one state to another, (4) develop hierarchical nanomanufacturing process for the creation of bistable rotaxane-based polymer micro/nano structures with controllable molecular architecture, and (5) demonstrate a new class of functional MEMS/NEMS devices with photoactive bistable rotaxane-based molecular machines as the key "active nanostructures," including microfluidic platforms, chemical/biological sensors, and energy conversion/storage systems.

Intellectual Merit: The PIs proposed research will lead to the creation of new synthetic routes for artificial molecular machines, and new computer-aided methodologies for the design and optimization of molecular structures/properties. The proposed research will result in breakthrough achievements in real functional molecular-machine-based NEMS. Thus, they aim their effort at the essence of nanotechnologys promise, proving the value of the enormous investment already made and stimulating accelerated activities in these areas.

Broader Impacts: The PI and three co-PIs each has longstanding commitments to education and community outreach activities. With the support from this NIRT grant, their team from four institutes will be able to expand the existing or start new outreach activities for minority groups, high-school students, undergraduates, high-school teachers, and middle-school students. The progress in our proposed endeavors will be included in courses being taught at the four universities. In addition, immersing their students in this interdisciplinary approach to nanotechnology, involving organic chemistry, computational material science, and nanoengineering will better equip students to adjust to the ever-changing scientific world, enabling them to develop into future leaders.

The objective of this project is to study fundamental catalytic mechanisms of nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials as high-performance catalysts for fuel cells. Fuel cells convert chemical energy directly into electricity by oxidizing, for example, hydrogen gas at the anode and reducing oxygen gas at the cathode. The relatively slow oxygen reduction reaction on the platinum cathode is a key step to limit the energy conversion efficiency of a fuel cell, and the high cost of the platinum catalysts has also been shown to be the major "showstopper" to mass market fuel cells. This project will focus on the development of new forms of nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials as low-cost, metal-free, efficient catalysts for oxygen reduction. A unique approach will be developed to experimentally study the molecular structures and catalytic activities of the new materials, in conjunction with an atomistic modeling of such structures to link the nanoscale phenomena to macroscopic catalytic performance and to evaluate the oxygen reduction reaction mechanism for highly-efficient, low-cost energy conversion in fuel cells.

The knowledge acquired will lead to not only a strong fundamental understanding of new scientific principles for the oxygen reduction reaction, but also developing/optimizing the nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials for fuel cell applications, even as new catalytic materials for applications beyond fuel cells. This project will benefit in developing new catalytic materials and energy devices for a broad range of applications in the field of clean energy conversion technologies (e.g. fuel cells, batteries, solar cells), chemical and materials engineering (e.g. corrosion, material synthesis), and biological and environmental engineering (e.g. biosensors, chemical sensors). The education impact will be to create an environment where all-level students (graduate, undergraduate, high school, and students from underrepresented groups) from multidisciplinary background work together on the development of a common platform. The research experience will be incorporated in interdisciplinary classes taught at CWRU (Electrochemistry, Nanotechnology) and Akron (Multiscale Modeling).