Dear Colleagues

We have an important fuel cell materials center seminar schedule as follows.

"Tailor-made Nanoporous Materials for Separation and Catalysis"
by Prof. Martin Hartmann
University of Augsburg,Germany
Date and Time: Feb. 22nd, 2008, 14.00 -
Place: Collaborative Research Build. (Namiki), 4F Large Seminar Room
ABSTRACT
Nanoporous molecular sieves are interesting materials for a wide range of applications including separation of molecules by selective application and heterogeneous catalysis. In recent year, two classes of materials, viz. porous coordination polymers and mesoporous silicas were drawing increasing attention. In particular porous coordination polymers (metal organic frameworks, MOFs) have been identified as a novel class of porous materials, which play a major role in the development of new technologies for energy storage, air and water treatment, sensing, catalysis and medicine. In particular their modular design allows a rational construction of tailor-made pore systems, which can be adjusted in form and function to the interacting molecules. The use of mesoporous silicas for enzyme immobilization has been studied in recent years [1]. The adsorption (immobilization) of proteins on inorganic materials is crucial because of the potential to improve the stability of enzymes under extreme conditions. The controlled adsorption of proteins is essential in the field of enzymatic catalysis, biosensors and disease diagnostics.The synthesis and properties of selected MOFs and tailor-made mesoporous silicas will be discussed with respect to potential applications. Our works aims at the detailed understanding of the dominant interactions between the framework and the adsorbing or reacting molecules. Therefore, physico-chemical methods such as X-ray diffraction, adsorption studies, NMR and ESR spectroscopy [2] as well as other spectroscopic techniques will be employed to analyze the local interaction sites. Finally potential applications such as olefin/paraffin separation and enzyme immobilization onto mesoporous materials aiming at the development of stable and selective biocatalysts will be discussed.
[1] M. Hartmann, Chem. Mater. 17 (2005) 4577.
[2] A. Pöppl, S. Kunz, D. Himsl, M. Hartmann, J. Phys. Chem. C 112 (2008) 2678.


This seminar will provide you good hints for development of your work.
Please do not miss this chance.
See you in the seminar place.