Jan 29, 2009 - Claremont, Calif. -
The students will present a paper titled “Metalloporphyrins: intramolecular coupling and injection efficiency on zinc oxide nanotube photoanodes.” Among the authors are HMC students Nancy Eisenmenger ‘09, Ryan Pakula ‘09, Steven Pankratz ‘09, Trevor McQueen ‘09, Glennis Rayermann ‘09 and Tarun Narayan ‘10. Also named as authors are Amanda Hickman ‘08, Professor of Chemistry Hal Van Ryswyk, and Vice President and Dean of Faculty and Professor of Chemistry Robert Cave, along with others from the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
The abstract for the poster describes the research as follows:
We are interested in long-range coupling in porphyrins and in their ability to efficiently inject charge into an underlying semiconductor. We synthesize metalloporphyrin oligomers and measure metal-metal coupling; these results are compared with predictions from the recently developed Koopmans’ theorem-generalized Mulliken-Hush (KT-GMH) theory. Templates for attaching metalloporphyrin oligomers to TiO2 nanoparticle and ZnO nanorod photoanodes are synthesized and affixed to measure injection efficiencies. These results will ultimately inform the design of the next generation of dye-sensitized solar cells.
The work derives from a National Science Foundation Research at Undergraduate Institutions grant awarded to Cave and Van Ryswyk, along with work Van Ryswyk did on sabbatical last year at Northwestern University with Professor Joe Hupp and graduate student Rebecca Jensen. The bulk of the paper involves senior thesis research this year by Eisenmenger, McQueen, Pakula, Pankratz and Rayermann. Narayan is a junior working on the project this year.
The Gordon Research Conferences are designed to bring together international participants from the forefront of science to interact in informal meetings and presentations, sharing recent results which have yet to be published.
According to Van Ryswyk, “For the GRC to accept undergraduates to participate is highly unusual. While I’ve heard of one or two undergrads attending, I’ve never seen a group as strong as ours; making a presentation is awesome. Needless to say, I’m exceptionally proud of this group.”
The Gordon Research Conferences provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical and physical sciences, and their related technologies. For more than 75 years, Gordon Research Conference meetings have been recognized as the world’s premier scientific conferences, where leading investigators from around the globe discuss their latest work and future challenges in a uniquely informal, interactive format.
The Gordon Conference describes the Renewable Energy: Solar Fuels meeting in this way:
Renewable energy is attracting extensive attention as a result of pervasive concerns about global sustainability and global climate change due to fossil fuel consumption, and solar energy conversion, either to biofuels or through artificial photosynthesis, is a central area of research in renewable energy. The increased focus on solar energy is due in large part to its abundance and wide availability—more energy from sunlight strikes the earth in an hour than all the energy consumed by humans in a year.
However, solar energy is both diffuse and intermittent. Thus, large area collection schemes that are still cost-effective must be developed and deployed, and robust mechanisms of energy storage must be designed. Fuels are preferable to electrical forms of storage due to their high energy density and ease of transportation. Thus, development of low-cost, efficient, and scalable schemes for solar energy capture and conversion into fuel will be vital to both future energy supply and global sustainability.
Media contact: Don Davidson
don_davidson@hmc.edu
Office: (909) 607-7924 / Cell: (909) 936-8201
Copyright 2009 Harvey Mudd College