Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

By LiAnna Davis

Recently, several prestigious organizations have announced plans to fund Georgetown College science faculty research projects on prominent issues like quantum mechanics, low-temperature refrigeration, electrode materials, fuel cells, and effective utilization of natural hydrocarbon resources.

“Research grants are an integral part of scientific discovery,” says Jane McAuliffe, Dean of Georgetown College. “Funding enables Georgetown College faculty to continue cutting-edge research in areas important to our daily lives. By awarding the grants, these organizations have recognized the exemplary work conducted by faculty and their student researchers at Georgetown.”

Recipients of these grants include Dr. Der-Chen Chang, Mathematics; Dr. Jim Freericks and Dr. Amy Liu, Physics; Dr. Miklos Kertesz, Chemistry; Dr. YuYe Tong, Chemistry; and Dr. Timothy Warren, Chemistry.

The Research Grant Council of the Hong Kong Government awarded Dr. Chang and Dr. Jishan Hu of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology a three-year, $445,000 award to study “Subelliptic PDEs and SubRiemannian Geometry.” Dr. Chang has published extensively in the area of geometry and partial differential equations, including three books, 2001’s Laguerre Calculus and Its Applications on the Heisenberg Group (co-authored with Carlos Berenstein and Jinzhi Tie), 2005’s Geometric Mechanics on Riemannian Manifolds (co-authored with Ovidiu Calin), and 2007’s Geometric Analysis on Heisenberg Group and Its Generalizations (co-authored with Calin and Peter Greiner). Dr. Chang’s grant will allow him to complete his fourth book on the topic, SubRiemannian Geometry: General Theory and Examples, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.

“This is a new direction in geometric analysis and partial differential equations,” explains Dr. Chang. “We try to understand the geometric phenomena that arise from quantum mechanics, especially quantum mechanics. There should be some applications for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).”

In the Department of Physics, Dr. Freericks and Dr. Liu received a three-year, $590,929 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for “Modeling Strongly Correlated Multilayered Nanostructures for Use as Thermoelectric Refrigerators.” This grant allows Dr. Freericks and Dr. Liu to extend their work with thermoelectricity and strongly correlated materials (Dr. Freericks’ was discussed in a past issue of Research News), but with more emphasis on thermal transport than their previous research.

“The ‘holy grail’ would be to find a functioning low-temperature thermoelectric refrigerator,” Dr. Freericks explains. “Most likely this will not happen, but we will learn a lot about strongly correlated materials and the possible roadblocks to being able to make such a device if we are unsuccessful in the primary goal. For example, we have already determined how to calculate the heat transport in these multilayered devices, which had never been done before and which now allows us to examine different systems to see how well they perform.”

Dr. Freericks plans to focus on how the electrons carry heat and electrical current, with Dr. Liu exploring how the lattice vibrations carry heat. The two scientists have received joint funding from the NSF continuously since 1996, and have authored eight publications together.

“For me, the hope that some of this work could lead to ideas that could become new devices is something I find quite exciting,” says Dr. Freericks. “I also am excited by the wealth of new science we will be developing along the way.”

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) awarded a three-year, $300,000 grant to Dr. Kertesz’s chemistry study on “Silicon Carbide Derived Carbons: Experiments and Modeling.” The grant will support his work modeling carbon phases obtained from silicon carbides. Initially, he will compare stabilities on naonometer-size pores. Very little is known about the sizes and shapes of these pores in materials such as silicon and carbon, but they are of great interest to Georgetown scientists and the DoE because porous materials can serve as electrode materials.

“The problem is challenging for a theorist because it represents a typical difficult modern problem: the number of atoms involved is not small (we have excellent methods to deal with small- to medium-size molecules and can predict their properties extremely well) or, on the other end, it is not part of a periodic solid, for which we also have excellent and very accurate methods,” explains Dr. Kertesz. “These pores have sizes that require the accurate description of hundreds of atoms. This is a theoretical challenge that is being attacked in many laboratories over the world. So this is a modern problem, it is in a competitive area, and has the potential to provide new insights into how our world is constructed and how it works. What could be more exiting for a scientist? The potential benefit in the energy sector is of course an added bonus.”

Dr. Kertesz’s work in this area grew out of a collaboration with Dr. Istvan Laszlo of the Technical University in Budapest, Hungary, and Dr. Yury Gogotsi of the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Drexel University. Dr. Laszlo brings the insights of a topological chemist—someone who deals with the mathematical aspects of the connectivities of atoms in large molecules—while Dr. Gogotsi contributes to the experimental side. Dr. Gogotsi also received a parallel grant from the DoE to work on his side of the project.

Dr. Tong also received a grant from the DoE, one of 13 projects selected for funding out of 502 applications. Dr. Tong’s three-year, $450,000 grant addresses “An in situ Electrode-Potential-Controlled Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Investigation of Sulfur-Poisoning Effect on Platinum Based Mono- and Bi-Metallic Nanoscale Electrocatalysts.” This study will draw upon Dr. Tong’s research in electrochemical nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which was covered in a past issue of Research News.

When fuel cells use sulfur-containing fuels, the reaction-generated elemental sulfur will form a strong chemical bond with metal surfaces and therefore passivate the electrodes’ surface, “poisoning” and eventually shutting down the fuel cells. The Hydrogen Fuel Initiative has identified sulfur poisoning as a crucial issue to be addressed for the practical durability and performance of fuel cells.

“Our project is intended to fill this void by providing the rich benchmark data urgently needed for achieving a broad-range mechanistic understanding of the sulfur poisoning and for critically assessing and further developing quantum theories of (electro)catalytic reactivity,” Dr. Tong says. Dr. Tong hopes that his work will also facilitate the design and development of new impurity-resistant platinum-based electrocatalysts, which will in turn contribute in a significant way to the development of more sustainable and reliable fuel cells.

Finally, Dr. Warren, also in the Chemistry Department, received a three-year, $420,000 National Science Foundation grant for his study, “Catalytic Group Transfer with Late Metal Nitrenes.” An NSF CAREER award from 2002 to 2007 laid the foundation for Dr. Warren’s current grant, in which he is pursing one of the grand challenges in synthetic chemistry: how to convert ubiquitous, unreactive carbon-hydrogen bonds into more valuable molecular units, such as those with carbon-nitrogen bonds, without going through intermediates that could generate additional waste. This work could allow organic chemists to introduce nitrogen atoms into organic molecules, enhancing both utility and complexity en route to creating compounds for the production of pharmaceuticals and other high-value substances.

“I am excited by this work because a new, useful, and difficult to achieve organic reaction (dealing with carbon) was discovered by detailed fundamental studies in inorganic chemistry (dealing with bonds to metal atoms),” says Dr. Warren. “It opens opportunities we didn’t think were available when we first started this work several years ago—and we’re excited about what new surprises lie ahead.”

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