Environmental Chemistry
Dr. Jorge Gardea-Torresdey
Research Interests
Applications of spectroscopy techniques in environmental chemistry; benefits and implications of nanotechnology in agricultural systems (i.e. the improvement of crop yields and quality through the use of nanoparticle delivery systems for essential nutrients, pesticides, and herbicides); development of analytical methods to detect nanomaterials; and the development of nano-enabled modular water treatment systems that are easy to deploy and that can treat and reuse challenging wastewaters.
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Dr. Wen-Yee Lee
Research Interests
Method development, determination of organic pollutants in the environment, and their impacts on human health. It is a unique field in our chemistry department, and fits into the university’s vision in interdisciplinary research and border related issues.
The two groups of organic compounds are the main focus in our research: (1) persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and (2) contaminants of emerging concern (CECs).
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Dr. Geoffrey Saupe
Research Interests
Chemistry of new materials, practical photocatalysts, and new nanometer film analytical tools.Dr. Dino Villagran
Research Interests
Our research projects fall into the areas of physical inorganic chemistry with primary emphasis on multielectron redox chemistry. Other areas of chemistry such as computational, synthetic and analytical chemistry are part of the focus of our group. We target problems of energy, environmental chemistry, and magnetism focusing on physical measurements and computational and theoretical studies. We utilize advanced synthetic techniques to prepare novel inorganic compounds based on transition metals that target the activation of small molecules and at the same time we pursue studies on their electrochemical and magnetic properties. We synthetically manipulate the structure and bonding of these inorganic compounds to tailor them to perform attractive multielectron redox chemistry. Our research program relies on X-ray crystallography, UV-Vis spectroscopy, electrochemistry, computational methods, and magnetic measurements to obtain information on energy and environmental problems and to expand our objectives into other novel transition metal scaffolds.