Award Abstract # 1736093
CREST Center for Innovation Research and Education in Environmental Nanotechnology

NSF Org: EES
Div. of Equity for Excellence in STEM
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO
Initial Amendment Date: July 20, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: April 8, 2024
Award Number: 1736093
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Luis Cubano
lcubano@nsf.gov  (703)292-7941
EES  Div. of Equity for Excellence in STEM
EDU  Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: October 1, 2017
End Date: August 31, 2025 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $5,000,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $5,118,600.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2017 = $1,350,000.00
FY 2019 = $650,000.00
FY 2020 = $1,000,000.00
FY 2021 = $1,000,000.00
FY 2022 = $1,118,600.00
History of Investigator:
  • Liz Diaz-Vazquez (Principal Investigator)
     liz.diaz2@upr.edu
  • Elvira Cuevas (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Zhongfang Chen (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Dalice Pinero (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Carlos Cabrera (Former Principal Investigator)
  • Luis Fonseca (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Liz Diaz-Vazquez (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras
 39 PONCE DE LEON AVE
 SAN JUAN
 PR  US  00931
(787)763-4949
Sponsor Congressional District: 00
Primary Place of Performance: University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras
 Ponce de Leon Ave.
 San Juan
 PR  US  00931-3346
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:		 00
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): Q3LLLDFHPNL3
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Centers for Rsch Excell in S&T
Primary Program Source: 04002223DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001718DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001819DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04001920DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04002021DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04002122DB NSF Education & Human Resource
04002223DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s): 9131, 9150, 9179, SMET
Program Element Code(s): 913100
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program supports the enhancement of research capabilities of minority-serving institutions through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. CREST promotes the development of new knowledge, enhancements of the research productivity of individual faculty, and an expanded presence of students historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

With National Science Foundation support, the University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras will establish the Center for Innovation, Research, and Education in Environmental Nanotechnology. The Center is a strategic effort that involves collaborations with universities, national laboratories and industry to utilize nanomaterials research to address environmental pollution, a topic of local and national importance, while developing the future STEM workforce

This Center will conduct interdisciplinary research in three areas. (1) The Nanomaterials for Water and Soil Remediation subproject will yield innovative approaches, research and education in the development of nanomaterials for water purification, soil remediation and resource recovery. In particular, these efforts will develop reactive membranes for water purification, heavy metal remediation, and microbial reactors. (2) Sensors for Environmental Monitoring research will develop nanomaterials that enable new, robust and stable devices for physical and chemical sensing of contaminants of environmental concern. The main goal is to develop devices that remain operational under environmental conditions with minimal power consumption. (3) Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion research will focus on energy storage and conversion, with special interest in the development of advanced materials for the recovery of energy from small molecules that are typically encountered in the environment such as: ammonia and urea. Emphasis will be placed on the discovery of nanomaterials for the enhanced operation of ammonia alkaline fuel cells and urea microbial fuel cells.

Education and training in environmental nanotechnology will support the professional development of undergraduate and graduate students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty. A citizen-based research initiative will be implemented to enable communities to make informed decisions and establish appropriate public policies related to environmental conservation practices and the use of environmental nanotechnology. The Center also addresses the national need to develop a diverse and well-prepared STEM workforce.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 96)
Aldalbahi, Ali and Velázquez, Rafael and Zhou, Andrew F. and Rahaman, Mostafizur and Feng, Peter X. "Bandgap-Tuned 2D Boron Nitride/Tungsten Nitride Nanocomposites for Development of High-Performance Deep Ultraviolet Selective Photodetectors" Nanomaterials , v.10 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10081433 Citation Details
An, Fenghui and Zhou, Andrew F. and Feng, Peter X. "Effect of Tungsten Oxide Nanostructures on Sensitivity and Selectivity of Pollution Gases" Sensors , v.20 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174801 Citation Details
Betancourt, Luis E. and Ortiz-Rodríguez, Ángel M. and Corchado-García, Juan and Cabrera, Carlos R. "RoDSE Synthesized Fine Tailored Au Nanoparticles from Au(X) 4 ? (X = Cl ? , Br ? , and OH ? ) on Unsupported Vulcan XC-72R for Ethanol Oxidation Reaction in Alkaline Media" ACS Applied Energy Materials , v.2 , 2018 10.1021/acsaem.8b01284 Citation Details
Betancourt, Luis E. and Rojas-Pérez, Arnulfo and Orozco, Ivan and Frenkel, Anatoly I and Li, Yuanyuan and Sasaki, Kotaro and Senanayake, Sanjaya D. and Cabrera, Carlos R "Enhancing ORR performance of bimetallic PdAg electrocatalysts by designing interactions between Pd and Ag" ACS Applied Energy Materials , 2020 10.1021/acsaem.9b01920 Citation Details
Cai, Xinyong and Chen, Yuanzheng and Sun, Bai and Chen, Jiao and Wang, Hongyan and Ni, Yuxiang and Tao, Li and Wang, Hui and Zhu, Shouhui and Li, Xiumei and Wang, Yanchao and Lv, Jian and Feng, Xiaolei and Redfern, Simon A. and Chen, Zhongfang "Two-dimensional Blue-AsP monolayers with tunable direct band gap and ultrahigh carrier mobility show promising high-performance photovoltaic properties" Nanoscale , v.11 , 2019 10.1039/c9nr01261c Citation Details
Camacho-Berríos, Adrián A. and Pantojas, Víctor M. and Otaño, Wilfredo "Reactive sputtered ZnO thin films: Influence of the O2/Ar flow ratio on the oxygen vacancies and paramagnetic active sites" Thin Solid Films , v.692 , 2019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2019.137641 Citation Details
Charipar, Kristin M. and Diaz-Rivera, Rubén E. and De Jesus-Villanueva, Nerida H. and Auyeung, Raymond C. and Charipar, Nicholas A. and Piqué, Alberto and Ra?iukaitis, Gediminas and Makimura, Tetsuya and Molpeceres, Carlos "Reusable laser-absorbing layers for LIFT" SPIE LASE, 2019, San Francisco, California, United States , 2019 10.1117/12.2513012 Citation Details
Chavez-Baldovino, Ermides and Malca-Reyes, Carlos A. and Masso, Roberto and Feng, Peter and Camacho, Adrian and Sarmiento, Janeth and Borrero Negrón, Justin I. and Pagán-Torres, Yomaira J. and Díaz-Vázquez, Liz M. "Optimizing Sustainable Energy Generation in Ethanol Fuel Cells: An Exploration of Carrageenan with TiO <sub>2</sub> Nanoparticles and Ni/CeO <sub>2</sub> Composites" ACS Omega , v.8 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.3c01188 Citation Details
Chen, Wei and Huang, Mengdi and Yi, Xianfeng and Hui, Yu and Gao, Pan and Hou, Guangjin and Stepanov, Alexander G. and Qin, Yucai and Song, Lijuan and Liu, Shang-Bin and Chen, Zhongfang and Zheng, Anmin "Protonated methylcyclopropane is an intermediate providing complete 13C-label scrambling at C4 olefin isomerization in zeolite" Chem Catalysis , v.3 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.checat.2022.100503 Citation Details
Chen, Wei and Liu, Zhiqiang and Zhao, Yinghe and Yi, Xianfeng and Chen, Zhongfang and Zheng, Anmin "To Be or Not To Be Protonated: cyclo -N 5 ? in Crystal and Solvent" The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters , v.9 , 2018 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b02841 Citation Details
Chen, Yuanzheng and Lao, Zebin and Sun, Bai and Feng, Xiaolei and Redfern, Simon A. and Liu, Hanyu and Lv, Jian and Wang, Hongyan and Chen, Zhongfang "Identifying the Ground-State NP Sheet through a Global Structure Search in Two-Dimensional Space and Its Promising High-Efficiency Photovoltaic Properties" ACS Materials Letters , v.1 , 2019 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.9b00220 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 96)

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