Organization Alert: Nanotube Research Group

“The flame from the angel's sword in the garden of Eden has been catalyzed into the atom bomb; God's thunderbolt became blunted, so man's thunderbolt has become the steel star of destruction.” -- Seán O'Casey (1880-1964) Irish dramatist and memoirist

O’Casey’s line is food for thought … but now to the mundane …

Nanotubes are being used to enhance catalysis, and as such have the potential to impact desulfurization research. Oklahoma University’s Nanotube Research Group (http://www.ou.edu/engineering/nanotube/) is one organization worth bookmarking.

Here by way of illustration is the abstract of a recent report produced by the group.

///////
Science 1 January 2010:
Vol. 327. no. 5961, pp. 68 - 72
Reports
Solid Nanoparticles that Catalyze Biofuel Upgrade Reactions at the Water/Oil Interface
Steven Crossley, Jimmy Faria, Min Shen, Daniel E. Resasco*
A recoverable catalyst that simultaneously stabilizes emulsions would be highly advantageous in streamlining processes such as biomass refining, in which the immiscibility and thermal instability of crude products greatly complicates purification procedures. Here, we report a family of solid catalysts that can stabilize water-oil emulsions and catalyze reactions at the liquid/liquid interface. By depositing palladium onto carbon nanotube–inorganic oxide hybrid nanoparticles, we demonstrate biphasic hydrodeoxygenation and condensation catalysis in three substrate classes of interest in biomass refining. Microscopic characterization of the emulsions supports localization of the hybrid particles at the interface.
School of Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: resasco@ou.edu
///////
Nanotube Research Group
Prof. Daniel E. Resasco (resasco@ou.edu)
Professor Daniel Resasco holds the Douglas Bourne Chair of the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He is also George Lynn Cross Professor, the highest research honor bestowed by the University. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina (1975) and his Ph.D. from Yale University (1984). He has received the 2004 Oklahoma Chemist of the Year from the American Chemical Society, the Yale Award for Advancement of Basic and Applied Science from the Yale Science and Engineering Association, Yale University, the Regents Award for Superior Research, University of Oklahoma (1999), the Sam A. Wilson Professorship, and the J. and K. Smalley Presidential Professorship (1996). He received the Big XII Rising Star Award from the Big XII Center for Economic Development, Innovation, and Commercialization and was finalist for the Small Times US Innovator of the Year in 2007. In 1987 he received the B. Houssay Award for Scientific Achievement from the National Research Council of Argentina. He has also served as a Chairman in the Chemical Engineering Department at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (1987-88). From 1991 to 1993 he was appointed Senior Scientist at Sun Company, Inc., Pennsylvania. He has been member of the Executive Committee of the International Congress on Catalysis (1996) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Catalysis, for which he is now a member of the Editorial Board. He is founder of SouthWest Nanotechnologies Inc., a major producer of high quality single-walled carbon nanotubes.
Source: http://www.ou.edu/engineering/nanotube/