NSF CAREER Award for Green Fuels Research

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03/11/2016 Added

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University of Nebraska-Lincoln chemist Jian Zhang is developing an organic-based catalyst that may one day allow production of clean energy fuels without toxic chemicals or precious metals.

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[00:00:01.300]Increasingly, our world is powered
[00:00:03.586]by clean energy such as synthetic gasoline or bio diesel.
[00:00:07.445]But sometimes the process needed to produce
[00:00:10.386]that energy isn't as clean as it could be.
[00:00:14.026]A University of Nebraska, Lincoln scientist
[00:00:16.836]is turning to green chemistry for the solution.
[00:00:20.173]What we're making is a new type of material
[00:00:24.163]that is called an organic porous polymer.
[00:00:27.263]UNL chemist Jian Zhang earned a career award
[00:00:30.929]from the National Science Foundation
[00:00:33.269]to fund his research on an organic based catalyst.
[00:00:36.789]A material that facilitates chemical reactions.
[00:00:40.408]Current processes use expensive, toxic,
[00:00:43.989]metal based materials.
[00:00:46.088]The purpose of our research is to replace
[00:00:48.908]the metal based catalyst we commonly use
[00:00:52.728]in chemical reactions with
[00:00:55.108]this non toxic, recyclable, and sustainable polymers.
[00:01:00.369]Jian's porous organic framework
[00:01:03.168]is a nano sized material made of components
[00:01:06.088]that avoid the use of metals.
[00:01:08.789]It is kinda like a sponge, but with a nano pore.
[00:01:12.708]So we use sponge everyday to absorb
[00:01:16.009]water, liquid stuff.
[00:01:18.348]And so our polymer, the pores inside is very small.
[00:01:23.169]It's nano sized pore.
[00:01:25.988]So it has a huge surface area.
[00:01:28.788]In Jain's lab,
[00:01:30.188]different colored solid catalysts are placed in a solution
[00:01:33.409]and hit with conventional light sources
[00:01:35.508]initiating a chemical reaction.
[00:01:37.948]A more sustainable process could be used
[00:01:39.928]to separate hydrogen and water and store it
[00:01:42.529]for use in hydrogen powered vehicles, for example.
[00:01:45.848]We take a new direction to look at
[00:01:50.209]how can we use the pure organic building blocks
[00:01:53.008]to make this porous polymers that has not
[00:01:56.268]been well studied before.
[00:01:58.649]We can imagine those small chemical molecules
[00:02:02.269]can go inside when you shine a light on this material.
[00:02:06.369]That can catalyze those small molecules
[00:02:10.188]to react together and produce the product that you want.
[00:02:13.629]Jian's career grant will fund a database
[00:02:16.068]of porous organic polymers available online
[00:02:19.148]to students and researchers.
[00:02:21.268]And he's working with the
[00:02:22.589]Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience
[00:02:25.149]to develop 3D models to improve
[00:02:27.688]science education in schools.
[00:02:30.089]It's his way of sharing the passion he has
[00:02:33.048]for chemistry research.
[00:02:35.009]You always find something,
[00:02:38.238]something new or something has not been done.
[00:02:41.565]Or something interesting, yeah.
[00:02:44.525]So that can get me going, actually.
[00:02:47.286]Yeah.

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NSF CAREER Award for Green Fuels Research

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