Current Research Directions
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Photocatalysis
A critical challenge in solar fuels and photocatalysis technologies is charge transfer management. While quantum dots have shown to be useful for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution and other related solar-to-fuel applications, these systems suffer from low quantum efficiencies and turnover numbers due to rapid radiative recombination on the nanosecond time scale and slow photocatalyst regeneration. Our work explores the synthesis and implementation of new heterostructure nanomaterials optimized for photocatalysis to reduce radiative recombination to improve solar to fuel efficiency with more rapid catalyst turnover rates. This research effort explores both catalyst design and development of new chemical reactions.
Luminescent Solar Concentrators​
Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) are luminophore embedded waveguides capable of collecting sunlight across a wide area and concentrating it onto smaller cells for energy conversion. Our lab is developing strategies to achieve high performance concentrators using near infrared emissive nanoparticles. Our goal is to create gray-scale LSCs to serve as power generating windows. These technologies are being developed to enable off-grid power generation.
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Environmental fate of selenium nanoparticles
Selenium nanoparticles are common in nature and formed naturally by yeast, bacteria, and fungi. Some bacteria are known to generate and excrete selenium nanoparticles via blebs, however, the reasons for this process is not fully understood. Since selenium is toxic in high concentrations, the bacteria may be forming nanoparticles to reduce selenium to safe levels or they may be using the excretions as weapons to deliver toxic levels of selenium nearby bacteria that absorb the excreted nanoparticle. This project is an interdisciplinary, collaborative effort and the Enright group's contribution is to synthesize monodisperse Se NPs to develop characterization tools and techniques for tracking Se NP behavior in the environment. These same Se NPs are also under development as antibacterial agents against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.