Chemical & Biological Engineering Wins NSF-NIRT Grant

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering has won a National Science Foundation /Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) grant, the first of its kind at Tufts. The four-year, $1.23 M Grant # 0304515, entitled "A New Class of Oxidation Catalysts: the Role of Atomically Dispersed Metals in Nanostructured Oxides", is directed by Dr. Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and principal investigator of the project. The scope of the grant builds on previous expertise of the Tufts group in using nanostructured doped cerium oxide catalysts for hydrogen generation for fuel cell applications.

Tufts faculty from both the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences serving as co-PIs of the project are: Howard Saltsburg (ChBE), Regina Valluzzi (ChBE) and Terry Haas (Chemistry). Dr. Jose Rodriguez, Senior Chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is as co-investigator responsible for catalyst characterization by synchrotron radiation. Outreach activities of the grant include training of high school teachers in collaboration with the Dudley-Wright Center of Tufts University; and the launching of a series of Distinguished Lectures in Nanotechnology for advanced materials and catalysts organized by Prof. Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, and co-sponsored by the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.